Minong: The Good Place-Ojibwe and Isle Royale

by Timothy Cochrane

Minong (the Ojibwe name for Isle Royale) is the search for the history of the Ojibwe people's relationship with this unique island in the midst of Lake Superior. Cochrane uses a variety of sources: Ojibwe oral narratives, recently rediscovered Jesuit records and diaries, reports of the Hudson's Bay post at Fort William, newspaper accounts, and numerous records from archives in the United States and Canada, to understand this relationship to a place. What emerges is a richly detailed account of Ojibwe activities on Minong―and their slow waning in the latter third of the nineteenth century.
     Piece by piece, Cochrane has assembled a narrative of a people, an island, and a way of life that transcends borders, governments, documentation, and tidy categories. His account reveals an authentic 'history': the missing details, contradictions, deviations from the conventions of historical narrative―the living entity at the intersection of documentation by those long dead and the narratives of those still living in the area. Significantly, it also documents how non-natives symbolically and legally appropriated Isle Royale by presenting it to fellow non-natives as an island that was uninhabited and unused.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Native American

285 pages, Paperback

First published February 19, 2009

Reviews

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone looking for Isle Royale history (primarily the last 400 years) will devour this incredibly researched book. Less passionate readers though may become overwhelmed by the many individuals mentioned, overlapping chronology, and random factoids, folklore, legends, and historical records. However, all should still appreciate the author's epic labor of love in sorting through the incomplete and sometimes conflicting source material.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little info heavy at times, this book could have certainly been consolidated some, but not a significant complaint on my end. Very informative which is what I was here for.

[Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cochran does exactly what he says he does but at times he could be more concise. It's a shame that there isn't more written history for him to draw on.

[Harve Lemelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating historical overview regarding the erasure of Aboriginal peoples from Minong, now known as Isle Royale National Park.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was absolutely fascinating. As someone who has been to Isle Royale now four times to enjoy the wilderness setting, I think this book should be required reading for anyone who visits or re-visits the island. Revealing the long ignored and hidden history of ongoing use by the North Shore Ojibwe of Minong, today known as Isle Royale National Park, this book is important original history. The narrative weaves together information gathered from translated French Jesuit priest journals, oral history interviews with current members of the Grand Portage Ojibwe, and other compelling primary source material to paint a detailed history of crossings by canoe, seasonal hunting and gathering, and contributions to the settler-led mining, fishing, and tourism operations that eventually completely displaced Ojibwe use of Minong. The details of the treaty negotiations that sold Isle Royale to Michigan in particular were painful to read-- Grand Portage Ojibwe were not invited to treat and were not even aware that discussions were happening when the island was completely taken from them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has been captivated by the beauty and mystery of Lake Superior, especially Isle Royale.

[Marieta Grissom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Cochrane presents a detailed history of the Ojibwe connections with Isle Royale (Michigan) and Grand Portage (Minnesota), and Fort William (Ontario).

My husband and I have visited all three places in recent years and had not picked up on the historical connections of the three places, even though Isle Royale is much closer to Grand Portage and Fort William than it is to the Keweenaw Peninsula (Michigan) to which it is politically associated.

The National Park Service (Isle Royale) has been slow to recognize that Native Americans were on the island for centuries prior to the copper mining and the fishing industries of 19th and 20 centuries.

While I found the book to be perhaps a little too detailed and slow in places, overall I was very impressed and appreciate that the author pulled his lifetime of experiences together to share his knowledge and observations with others.

[Drpsychorat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well researched and written book about the cultural history of Isle Royal. At once depressing, it is a story of betrayal, repression and the deliberate destruction of a culture. But it is also a story of possibilities and the hope of a revival of at least some of its cultural history.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well researched and written book about Isle Royal, an island on the west side of lake Superior. To the Native Americans, it was a place to hunt and fish. To the whites that came, it was a place to fish and mine the copper deposits. You will also find the reason why It is part of Michigan, altho its 15 miles off the coast of Minnesota and Ontario.

[Jilll · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book to do research for Local History Smackdown....it was disappointing as it was mostly about North Shore Ojibwa's history at Isle Royale. I forced myself to finish it.

[Sherri Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was easy to read and enjoyable. The information was great. I especially enjoyed the Ojibwe legends of Isle Royale.