Margaret Huettl

This project is an Anishinaabe or Ojibwe history of Gichigami (Lake Superior). Stretching from time immemorial to the present day, this history explores seven episodes in Gichigami’s past, present, and future, bringing together environmental, cultural, and political histories. From an Anishinaabe perspective, the history of Gichigami is one of their unbroken relationship with the lake and its resources, a powerful story of sovereignty amidst settler colonial destruction. Anishinaabe men and women claimed and reclaimed Gichigami through legal activism, everyday labor, and sacred relationships. An Anishinaabe history of Gichigami demonstrates that the largest of the Great Lakes remained an Anishinaabe space—and that has implications for thinking about solutions to contemporary problems such as climate change.