AHS 2nd Trimester Env. Science students:
As you know, water, in general, and the Great Lakes in particular, are valuable for their life-giving properties. You can survive for weeks without food; but, just days without freshwater....Early French explorers called the Great Lakes the "Sweet water seas," because of their expansiveness and thirst-quenching freshwater. "Detroit" also comes from French, meaning "the strait" (a connecting channel between two large bodies of water). Long before the French arrived in the area along with other European trappers and settlers, the Native Americans had been living successfully in the forests and along the shores of the Great Lakes for millennia. The Anishinabe (Chippewa/Ojibwe), Wyandot (Huron), and other tribal nations hunted and gathered in the Great Lakes region prior to the arrival of Europeans and survived well on a subsistence way of life that respected the spirit of all life and nature. Though they often changed the landscape around them to their benefit, their "ecological footprint" on the planet was far less than that of the Europeans, who viewed nature as simply something to be used for personal gain, without regard to environmental consequences. European technologies, including gun powder, steel manufacturing, and the steam engine (and then the combustion engine) also allowed much greater transformation of the environment and increasing environmental degradation. It is unfortunate that these Native American peoples were decimated by war, disease and exploitation by their European counterparts; and, today, their culture and history is only vaguely acknowledged in our history books. Adapting to the new world of machines and manufacturing, Native Americans still remain throughout the Great Lakes region, often settling on reservations set aside in treaties and living as autonomous "nations" with their own governing charters and law enforcement. The Great Lakes region is also filled with names of cities and waterways from the Native American languages. Post a comment about a name of a city or waterway in the Great Lakes region and provide its Native American origin and meaning. For example: "Michigan" from the Ojibwe word "mishigama" meaning "big water" or "large lake."
*(Please provide your name with your post!)
