Inside Great Lakes Indigenous Culture — Before There was a Canada/US Border
Think the explorers and voyageurs opened up North America, finding all those trade and travel routes through the New World? Do you imagine regional indigenous peoples once living in idyllic isolation? Think again. With the help of MSU Professor of Anthropology, John Norder, and National Geographic Travel Media Editor, Norie Quintos, North Americana explores the massive crossroads of pre-contact North America. Come with us to Northern Ontario’s Manitoulin Island — meet Great Lakes First Peoples and explore the ancient axis across which trade, people and ideas flowed from the far north to the Gulf of Mexico, to the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast. And all this millennia before Christopher Columbus.
In this episode, we meet the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes (on both sides of Canada US border.) We hear their history and stories, told on their own terms. And we share some tips to help you start planning your own Manitoulin Island road trip. Like our host Liz Beatty, you’ll be forever changed.
Indigenous guides teach about the trauma of residential schools in the region. Seen here: Parents on the shore just after their children were picked up and boated to Wikwemikong residential school on Manitoulin Island.
