Marking Anishinaabe trails

Left-right, JoAnne Cook, Arlene Kashata, Eva Petoskey, James Vukelich, Linda Woods and Emily Modrall, pose at the marker unveiled on May 15 in Traverse City. Photo by Sakura Takano / Rotary Charities

From staff reports

The Leelanau County and Grand Traverse communities, led by members of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, gathered on May 15 at Clinch Park in Traverse City to celebrate the Anishinaabe Cultural Marker Project.

Seven markers celebrating spots along “Old Indian Trails” have already been installed in Suttons Bay near the library, in Leland near the museum, at Northport’s Peterson Park, at Omena beach park, at Hannah Park and Clinch Park in Traverse City, and at the Brown Bridge canoe launch in Grand Traverse County. Two more, in Northport’s marina park and West End Beach in Traverse City, will soon receive their installations, bringing the total to nine.

The signs are more sculptures or monuments than simple signs. Made of Corten steel that develops a beautiful protective rust patina, the six-foot-tall hollow structures look like multi-faceted boulders and are meant to represent the timeless and enduring nature of the Anishinaabe past, present and future. They were designed by Oneida Nation designer and architect Chris Cornelius and his design company, studio: indigenous.

The Kchi Wiikwedoong Anishinaabe History Project began in 2021 when a group of collaborators set out to install new cultural markers on public land in five local municipalities. It’s also an effort to represent the history of the Anishinaabek of the Grand Traverse region more prominently and accurately in public spaces.

Emily Modrall, who grew up in Suttons Bay, and does not have indigenous roots, was nevertheless an instigator of the project. She returned to northern Michigan after stints in Pennsylvania and 15 years of archaeology fieldwork Italy. Four years ago she came across a marker at West End Beach etched “OLD INDIAN TRAIL” which she learned led south to Cadillac and was used by the Anishinaabek more than a century ago. Most of these trails are now lost to history—or paved over. Modrall describes herself in that moment unmoored, as she felt the history of her home and birthplace shifting beneath her feet. “What was this old trail?” She remembers wondering, “Who put up this marker? And what more can we do to preserve the past?”

Read more about the Anishinaabe History Project and Emily Modrall in Jess Piskor’s story “This land needs to hear its language,” which the Sun published in December 2023.

Modrall approached local tribal leaders including JoAnne Cook of the Grand Traverse Band and Frank Ettawageshik, who in 1987 completed an earlier project marking a known Anishinaabe overland trail from Lake Mitchell to Grand Traverse Bay. The decisions, language, design and implementation of the Anishinaabe History Project were ultimately led and informed by members of the Grand Traverse Band, while Modrall saw her role as that of a convenor of stakeholders.

The nine monuments, built in Traverse City by Nuart Signs, are tactile. Holes are cut in them in a pattern that comes from Great Lakes Anishinaabe beadwork. Together with designs that look like feathers, Modrall enthusiastically describes, “the holes let the light and the wind and the water sort of blow or shine through. You can tap them and they ring.”

The marker at Clinch Park in Traverse City, which the community celebrated with a traditional drum circle and speeches, features a plaque with the following narrative, written both in Anishinaabe and in English:

“As Anishinaabek, we have lived upon this earth since the beginning of Creation. In the Great Lakes Region, we are known as the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodewe’wadmi of the Three Fires Confederacy. We lived in small villages throughout this area. Our connection to Mother Earth provided all that we needed. As people of the land and the water, we traveled seasonally to fish, gather berries, grow gardens, hunt, and harvest maple syrup. Our way of life embraced family, community, and respect for what we were given.

Our relationship with Creation was disrupted. Although life changed, some things remain the same. We have not forgotten who we are, our responsibilities, and where we come from. We continued to protect our Mother the earth, water, plants, animals, and each other. We continue to live in our homeland, Kchi Wilkwedoong, place of the big bay, also known as the Grand Traverse Region. Where you are standing, Traverse City, was an Odawa village.

Today we are thriving Anishinaabek, standing together with our ancestors as the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.”

Check out this short film Still Walking: A Living History of Anishinaabe Trails.