Timothy Cochrane

Timothy Cochrane is park superintendent at Grand Portage National Monument, where he works closely with Grand Portage Ojibwe.

Minong
The Good Place—Ojibwe and Isle Royale

Timothy Cochrane

WINNER: 2010 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award

This account traces the Ojibwe people's long history with Isle Royale. Minong (the Ojibwe name for Isle Royale) is the search for the history of the Ojibwe people's relationship with this unique island in the midst of Lake Superior. Cochrane uses a variety of sources: Ojibwe oral narratives, recently rediscovered Jesuit records and diaries, reports of the Hudson's Bay post at Fort William, newspaper accounts, and numerous records from archives in the United States and Canada, to understand this relationship to a place. What emerges is a richly detailed account of Ojibwe activities on Minong — and their slow waning in the latter third of the nineteenth century.

Piece by piece, Cochrane has assembled a narrative of a people, an island, and a way of life that transcends borders, governments, documentation, and tidy categories. His account reveals an authentic 'history': the missing details, contradictions, deviations from the conventions of historical narrative — the living entity at the intersection of documentation by those long dead and the narratives of those still living in the area. Significantly, it also documents how non-natives symbolically and legally appropriated Isle Royale by presenting it to fellow non-natives as an island that was uninhabited and unused.

CONTENTS:
Foreword by Norman Deschampe
Introduction
Ch. 1 Knowing Minong
Ch. 2 Minong Narratives
Ch. 3 On Minong
Ch. 4 Removed from Minong
Conclusion: The Good Place Today
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Click this link to visit the web site of Minong's photographic illustrator, Grand Portage photographer Travis Novitsky

Reviews

"Tim draws meticulous paths to his conclusions. The section on the Ojibway name for Isle Royale - Minong - is a good example. He traces the words use on maps and early documents to its most reasonable meaning....Facts and figures are enjoyably woven with quality writing. Maps and the image section add to the pleasure and understanding." - LAKE SUPERIOR magazine

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