Walking the old road : a people's history of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe

Select an Action

Title:

Walking the old road : a people's history of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe

Author:

Drouillard, Staci Lola author.

ISBN:

9781517903404

Physical Description:

302 pages : illustrations, map ; 22 cm.

Contents:

Prologue: The Old Road -- We Used to Sneak in There and Play: The Chippewa City Church -- A Gateway for the Ages: The Anishinaabeg Arrive at the Pigeon River -- At the Pleasure of the United States: The Land Changes Hands -- Here Were Many Wigwams: The Grand Marais Chippewa -- Nishkwakwansing: At the Edge of the Forest -- Nokomisag minawa Mishoomisag: Grandmothers and Grandfathers -- Indian Maidens and Plastic Tomahawks: How to Make a Living -- A Call from Longbody: North Woods Neighbors -- We Are Buried Here: The Old Cemetery -- I Guess Sometimes I'm Torn: Life Between Two Worlds -- 10. Divide the Land, Divide the People: Land and Identity -- Signed with an X: Katie's Point -- 12. Jiigewayaazhagamay: She Walks Along the Water's Edge -- Epilogue: A Return Home.

Subject Term:

Ojibwa Indians -- Minnesota -- Chippewa City -- History.

Ojibwa Indians.

Geographic Term:

Chippewa City (Minn.) -- History.

Summary:

Walking the Old Road revisits a time when generations of Ojibwe ancestors called the lost community of Chippewa City home. Staci Lola Drouillard, whose family once lived in Chippewa City, draws on memories, family history, historical analysis, and testimony passed down through generations to conduct us through the ages of early European contact, government land allotment, family relocation, and assimilation. --

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Bayport Public Library	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi)	977.00497333 DRO	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

The story of a once vibrant, now vanished off-reservation Ojibwe village--and a vital chapter of the history of the North Shore

"We do this because telling where you are from is just as important as your name. It helps tie us together and gives us a strong and solid place to speak from. It is my hope that the stories of Chippewa City will be heard, shared, and remembered, and that the story of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Chippewa will continue to grow. By being a part of the living narrative, Bimaadizi Aadizookaan, together we can create a new story about what was, what is, and, ultimately, what will be." --from the Prologue

At the turn of the nineteenth century, one mile east of Grand Marais, Minnesota, you would have found Chippewa City, a village that as many as 200 Anishinaabe families called home. Today you will find only Highway 61, private lakeshore property, and the one remaining village building: St. Francis Xavier Church. In Walking the Old Road , Staci Lola Drouillard guides readers through the story of that lost community, reclaiming for history the Ojibwe voices that have for so long, and so unceremoniously, been silenced.

Blending memoir, oral history, and narrative, Walking the Old Road reaches back to a time when Chippewa City, then called Nishkwakwansing (at the edge of the forest), was home to generations of Ojibwe ancestors. Drouillard, whose own family once lived in Chippewa City, draws on memories, family history, historical analysis, and testimony passed from one generation to the next to conduct us through the ages of early European contact, government land allotment, family relocation, and assimilation.

Documenting a story too often told by non-Natives, whether historians or travelers, archaeologists or settlers, Walking the Old Road gives an authentic voice to the Native American history of the North Shore. This history, infused with a powerful sense of place, connects the Ojibwe of today with the traditions of their ancestors and their descendants, recreating the narrative of Chippewa City as it was--and is and forever will be--lived.

Author Notes

Staci Lola Drouillard lives and works in her hometown of Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. A Grand Portage tribal descendant, she began interviewing Chippewa City elders in 1987.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

The emergence of several Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa) scholars, who enhance traditional methods of scholarship with oral histories and intimate experiences to articulate history, has enriched understanding of the Ojibwe experience and the field of Native American studies overall. Douillard's volume follows this trend, recounting Ojibwe experiences of marginalization in Chippewa City, Minnesota, as American expansion devoured Ojibwe land and resources. Forced to the margins of American towns and cities, the residents of Chippewa City survived and maintained traditions while being subject to the whims of their dominant neighbors. Many Ojibwe residents trudged the mile of the "Old Road" from Chippewa City to the nearby town of Grand Marais for work, school, and retail, where discrimination was pervasive but not vicious. Drouillard, whose own family once lived in Chippewa City, draws on her ancestors' records and extensive interviews to re-create the experiences of this vibrant community, which persisted through the 1930s. Multiple photographs and quotations personalize this people's history, which highlights the effects of American policies on real people, particularly indigenous communities. Drouillard's work fits well among studies by Ojibwe scholars Brenda Child, Anton Treuer, Erik Redix, and Chantal Norgaard. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through graduate students. --Gregory Omer Gagnon, emeritus, Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law

Chippewa City and Minnesota's North Shore	p. ix
Prologue. The Old Road	p. 1
Chapter 1 We Used to Sneak in There and Play: The Chippewa City Church	p. 9
Chapter 2 A Gateway for the Ages: The Anishinaabeg Arrive at the Pigeon River	p. 25
Chapter 3 At the Pleasure of the United States: The Land Changes Hands	p. 53
Chapter 4 Here Were Many Wigwams: The Grand Marais Chippewa	p. 71
Chapter 5 Nishkwakwansing: At the Edge of the Forest	p. 99
Chapter 6 Nokomisag miinawaa Mishoomisag: Grandmothers and Grandfathers	p. 115
Chapter 7 Indian Maidens and Plastic Tomahawks: How to Make a Living	p. 143
Chapter 8 A Call from Longbody: North Woods Neighbors	p. 171
Chapter 9 We Are Buried Here: The Old Cemetery	p. 193
Chapter 10 I Guess Sometimes I'm Torn: Life between Two Worlds	p. 209
Chapter 11 Divide the Land, Divide the People: Land and Identity	p. 225
Chapter 12 Signed with an X: Katie's Point	p. 243
Chapter 13 Jiigewayaazhagamay: She Walks along the Water's Edge	p. 255
Epilogue. A Return Home	p. 269
Miigwech	p. 277
Notes	p. 281
Index	p. 299

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Table of Contents

Helpful Links

Research Links

Contact

Events and Rooms

Follow Us

Today's Hours