Book Description

"The journals of two clerks of the American Fur Company recall a lost moment in the history of the fur trade and the Anishinaabeg along Lake Superior?s North Shore. Through the words of long-ago witnesses, Gichi Bitobig, Grand Marais recovers the overlooked Anishinaabeg roots and corporate origins of Grand Marais, a history more complex than is often told. It recalls a time in northern Minnesota when men of the American Fur Company and the Anishinaabeg navigated the shifting course of progress, negotiating the new perils and prospects of commerce?s westward drift. Gichi Bitobig, Grand Marais reveals how the lives of local fur traders and the area?s indigenous people were shaped and influenced by Lake Superior and its watershed. Fascinating personal, local, cultural, and economic details provide insight into how both cultures were buffeted by and in the grip of political and economic forces not much different from those familiar to us today. -- Chel Anderson, coauthor of North Shore: A Natural History of Minnesota?s Superior Coast"-- https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/gichi-bitobig-grand-marais.