Encampment at Pequodenonge

For centuries, Native Americans came to the Straits of Mackinac every summer to fish, trade with one another, and hold inter-tribal councils at a place they called Pe-quod-e-monge, or the headlands. The local Anishnaabek, from the Odawa and Ojibwa tribes, were joined by members of the Pottawatomi, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, and other tribes from around the western Great Lakes. After 1715, these summer visits also included interactions with European priests, soldiers, and traders. By the 1770s, Native people visited Michilimackinac to renew friendships, sell furs and corn, purchase supplies, and conduct councils with British authorities. A small Anishnaabek band visiting Michilimackinac in the 1770s would have lived in a summer camp with conical lodges called nasaaogans, wood-pole frames covered with bark or reed mats, while keeping lodge frames at their spring, summer, and winter camps and removing the coverings when they moved between campsites. Today, descendants of these early Native inhabitants remain throughout the Straits of Mackinac region.

Mackinaw City, Michigan · United States