STRENUOUS KABETOGAMA PENINSULA VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK
Human Migration in Northeastern Country
Like the glaciers, waves of people have washed over northeastern Country and the peninsula bringing their own changes. The earliest signs of humans living in the Kabetogama Peninsula area date from 7,000-
3,000 years ago. During this period, a seminomadic group of Native Americans referred to as the Archaic Tradition occupied the region. They used copper implements and pine log canoes. Beginning about 200 b.c. people of the Woodland Tradition were developing a complex lifestyle that involved gathering and storing plant foods, hunting, and fishing. They made clay pottery for food storage and burial mounds for their dead. By the time French explorers arrived in the mid- 1600s, Sioux Indians occupied the region and were fighting a losing battle with the Ojibwa over its control.
On the heels of early white explorers came missionaries, fur traders, loggers, fishermen, miners, and farmers. No changes were more significant than those made by fur traders and loggers. By 1925 the peninsula was almost devoid of beaver, and loggers, cutting until 1972, left practically none of the original forest.
