© All Rights Reserved

This Native American cemetery features decades-old spirit house hidden behind pine trees and moss.

© All Rights Reserved

© All Rights Reserved

Among the Indians who moved from Naomikong to what is now the Indian Mission at Bay Mills was a little girl, Eliza (Waishkey) LaBranch, (B: Jan, 4, 1847 - D: Nov. 16, 1917). It was Eliza who selected the tree, then only a twig, & planted it at the head of her Grandfather Waishkey's (lawbawdic) grave. (B: 1778 - D: 1847)
He was born of the Caribou Clan & Chief of the Waiskey Band of the Chippewa Indians. The tree., a white pine, was planted about the year 1848.

Bay Mills Indian Community
GNOOZHEKAANING

© All Rights Reserved

The Bay Mills Indian Community (BMIC) (Ojibwe: Gnoozhekaaning, lit. "Place of the Pike"), is an Indian reservation forming the land base of one of the many federally recognized Sault Ste. Marie bands of Chippewa (aka Ojibwa).

The largest section of the reservation is located in Chippewa County, Michigan, approximately 15 miles (25 km) west-southwest of Sault Ste. Marie. The tribe has land in both Bay Mills and Superior townships. A smaller section lies southeast of Sault Ste. Marie and encompasses Sugar Island, all contained within the boundaries of Sugar Island Township.

Bay Mills people are Ojibwa or Chippewa who have lived for hundreds of years around the Whitefish Bay, the falls of the St. Marys River and the bluffs overlooking Tahquamenon Bay, all on Lake Superior and southwest of Sault Ste. Marie. The Bay Mills Indian Community was officially established by an Act of Congress on June 19, 1860.

After passage of the federal Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Bay Mills Indian Community (BMIC) created a new form of government under a written constitution, adopted on November 27, 1937. This was approved and recognized by the federal government, which purchased land for the community to establish a reservation land base. Its territory was one of the four reservations established in Michigan under the 1934 act. These lands, along with the original Bay Mills Mission and a small area on Sugar Island, occupied by its people at least since the late 18th century, comprise the majority of the current reservation land holdings in Chippewa County.

© All Rights Reserved