Glacial Gifts

Ice-Age glaciers covered the Whitefish Bay area for thousands of years and left behind a complex mosaic of sand, gravel, and clay. After the last glacier retreated about 10,000 years ago, water and wind shaped these deposits into the present landscape. Variations in soils and other conditions led different plant and animal communities to develop. Later, Native Americans and then European immigrants traveled along this coast to find what they needed to make a living. Point Iroquois and Gros Cap, on the opposite shore in Canada, were likened by Henry Schoolcraft in 1851 to the Pillars of Hercules marking the foot of Lake Superior. In the Ojibwe language, stones are animate, called grandfathers and grandmothers, and hold great importance in Ojibwe philosophy. Many stones here were carried by glaciers from bedrock formations to the north in Canada.

Michigan · United States