Wayside: First People of the Place

Interpretive panel illustrating the history of people inhabiting the area.

NPS credit

Quick Facts

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

Imagine you're the first person to ever take in this view. It's 8,000 years ago. The glaciers have melted; dense forests are growing back. You live lightly on this ground. You hunt, fish, and gather other harvests from the land and lakes. Traders arrive with flint, copper, and ideas. Eventually you're growing crops, decorating pottery, and boiling sugar from maple sap at camps on Glen Lake. In time, Europeans arrive and wars break out over furs. Your descendents-the Anishinaabek-form a Confederacy of Three Fires: the Odawa and Ojibwe of the upper Great Lakes and the Potawatomi further south. In 1836, with sadness in their hearts, they sign a treaty, allowing Euro-Americans to occupy the land. Yet, unlike other tribes, your kin tenaciously resist removal and remain a vibrant part of northern Michigan today.

From Steamships to Automobiles
See that white barn in the distance? D. H. Day built that farm, but he always lived in Glen Haven where he could hear the whistle of boats as they approached his dock. This was the Great Lake frontier and Lake Michigan was the highway. Getting here by car wasn't easy until M-109 was finished in 1929.