“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024. “Nibi” is a word for water in Ojibwemowin, and these features explore the intersection of Indigenous history and culture in the modern-day Great Lakes region.
Old timers recall paddling by an Ojibwe spirit house on the north end of Lake Agnes, which marked the final resting place of Bakindeghiizhik, the son of Makadewasin — Chief Blackstone. Over the years, the spirit house, pipe and other personal items left to honor Bakindeghiizhik were stolen by people who likely had no real understanding of how Bakindeghiizhik died trying to save his people at Kawa Bay, the ancestral home of he and his father’s people.
In late fall of 1918, the influenza pandemic spread throughout the Great Lakes, and during the winter of 1919, the virus reached the remote outpost at Kawa Bay, and many people became gravely ill and many died. Unable to dig graves, Bakindegiishik—known as John Blackstone in English, was forced to bury those who had died in the snow. By 1920, 50 million people would die of influenza.
According to Mary Ottertail Powell, an Ojibwe elder and descendant of the Kawa Bay Band, Blackstone knew he had to try and find help. He and his wife decided to walk on snowshoes to his sister Margaret Makadewasin Powell’s cabin on Saganagons Lake — 15 miles away. They made it to the cabin to find that there were no radio communications. Their options were bleak. They decided to walk from Saganagons to Winton, Minnesota, another 50 miles.
Miraculously, they arrived at a store and Joe Russell, the owner, wired Canadian officials with news that “Indian village at Kawa Bay is dying,” according to Mike Hillman in Blackstone’s Long Walk. Trusting that help would soon arrive, the couple started the long trek back to Kawa Bay. They chose a northern route through Basswood and Agnes Lake, pulling a toboggan behind them the whole way. On the north end of Agnes, John Blackstone collapsed of exhaustion and died. His wife wrapped his body in a rabbit skin blanket and buried him in the snow.
The Canadian government did not respond until ice-out in the spring. Those who survived were transported by canoe to Lac La Croix, including Bakindegiishik’s widow, who lived 35 years after she and her husband made the long walk to try to save their people. His people returned to Lake Agnes and buried him in the traditional way, building a spirit house on the grave and leaving his pipe and other important items to honor his journey.
So far, the name of his widow remains elusive. We do know that John Blackstone’s sisters Mary, Margaret and Shaubigezhigok survived the epidemic and had their own families. Shaubigezhigok lived to be 116 years old, and was often visited in Thunder Bay, Ontario by her great-nephew Milt Powell, who carried the story of his Blackstone ancestors with him, and was always willing to share.
Bakindeghiizhik’s Father Chief Blackstone
Chief Blackstone (Sr.) is recognized as “the first chief” at Gakijiwanong (formerly Lac La Croix), a First Nations Reserve on the Canadian border. He is a legendary figure in Great Lakes history due to his staunch resistance to mining and missionaries — both direct threats to Ojibwe-Anishinaabe way of life.
Drawing of Makadewasin–Chief Blackstone Sr., by Sydney P. Hall, July 25, 1881. Image Courtesy of Public Archives of Canada C12842
The idea that Ojibwe people are led by a “chief” or a singular “headman” is a Western concept, and not supported by traditional Ojibwe-Anishinaabe leadership structure which is built on decision making by council. Makadewasin along with other leaders, were involved with treaty negotiations during the 1800s — a period of transition when non-Native prospectors made their way across Ojibwe country in search of gold, silver and other resources.
When gold was discovered at Jackfish Lake in 1871, Makadewasin had the foresight and political acumen to oust a posse of gold miners out of his band’s territory, forcing them to return empty-handed to Ft. William, Ontario. This bold move made him a threat to French and British interests, and so his political foes launched a smear campaign designed to tarnish his reputation and weaken his influence.
Area priests helped spread the rumor that Blackstone had been involved in the “Minnesota Massacre” of 1862, which took place at the Lower Sioux Agency in the Minnesota River Valley. The five-week conflict ended with the forced removal of the Dakota and Ho Chunk to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota. Also known as the “Dakota War,” the battle resulted in the execution of 38 Dakota men at Mankato, Minnesota. The false association with the Dakota uprising tarnished Blackstone’s reputation by playing on the prevailing fears and prejudices that Indigenous people were “war-like” and untrustworthy.
Makadewasin’s great-grandson Milt Powell, who grew up on Saganagons Lake, deep inside Ojibwe territory, was skeptical that Blackstone was ever involved in the Dakota war and that the intention was to “sow discord,” according to Tim Cochrane in Making the Carry. At the time, Ojibwe and Dakota people were not allies, and it is unlikely that Blackstone and his people would have fought against the U.S. Government or taken a side in the conflict. And the Wawiag River country, where Blackstone was active, was a long distance from Dakota territory.
Makadewasin was also very clear on the matter of religion. According to Chocrane, one Indian Agent advised, “As a general rule [Blackstone’s people] do not seem to wish to be Christianized.” The Rainy Lake writer and naturalist Ernest Oberholzer documented this through the oral history of Billy Magee, Ojibwe-Anishinaabe from Seine River, Ontario. From the Elizabeth Arthur Collection at Ottawa and Fort Frances, Oberholzer noted that:
“Priests had been trying for a hundred years or more to Christianize the Indians in this watershed. So, the Catholics were determined to make a big drive, and in the winter, sent out notices to all the Ojibwe tribes in northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario living about the old fur trade route and speaking the same dialect inviting them to a big pow wow up on Shebandowan Lake.”
Birch bark canoe building. Man gumming canoe is Bakindegiizhik–John Blackstone, 1900. Photo Courtesy of USDA-Superior National Forest collection, Iron Range Discovery Center, Chisholm, MN
According to Magee’s account, a different priest spoke each day, for three days. After listening to the Catholic point of view, Chief Blackstone presented the Ojibwe-Anishinaabe counterpoint, which Oberholzer described as “a reminder that the Bible and the Birchbark Scrolls both came from God and one is for the white man and one is for the Indians.”
Despite concerted efforts by the priests, Blackstone and his people never converted. Makadewasin belonged to the Adik (Caribou) clan. He had three wives, three sons and five daughters. Having more than one wife indicates his status as a leader, and that he was a good provider for his family. His family along with 25 other families lived at Kawawaigamok Bay (also called Kawa Bay) at the mouth of the Wawiag River on Kawnipi Lake, which is in the Rainy River district of Ontario.
In 1873, Makadewasin represented his band as one of the negotiators of Treaty 3, also known as the North-West Angle Treaty. The agreement opened the interior to non-Native settlement, mining and logging. The treaty provisions negotiated by Blackstone and 27 other signatories included the Ojibwe-Anishinaabeg demand that the rivers and waterways inside ceded territory “would not be broken” by dams or other disruptions to the natural world. It also reserved hunting and fishing rights for the Ojibwe bands inside the treaty area.
Four years later Gakijiwanong (Lac La Croix) was chosen as a reserve, as well as Sturgeon Lake, also known as the “Kawa Bay” Reserve, located at what is now the center of Quetico Provincial Park. The 1873 agreement would be the third of eleven treaties — known as the “Numbered Treaties,” signed between Ojibwe Nations and the Canadian government between 1871 and 1921. When Canadian Governor General Lord Lorne and his wife Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria visited the border country in 1881, Chief Blackstone presented them with a piece of Ontario gold ore as a gift for the Queen.
After Makadewasin passed away in 1885 his son Bakindegiizhik — which means “hole made in the sky,” was named as his successor. Bakindegiizhik served as leader at Gakijiwanong for four years. Like his father, his tenure was interrupted by unsubstantiated accusations. In this case, according to Cochrane, the Indian Agent Albert McCraken claimed that Blackstone had sold his “chief’s coat” and medal which was considered an insult to the Canadian government. Using his leverage as a government agent, McCraken refused to pay the Blackstone family their treaty annuities unless Bakindegiishik stepped down.
In 1889 he and his family moved between Basswood Lake, near Ely, Minnesota and the reserve on Kawnipi Lake. The village at Kawa Bay remained active until 1910 until the Ojibwe families were forced to relocate to Gakijiwanong (Lac La Croix), Basswood Lake and even as far east as Grand Portage, to make way for Quetico Provincial Park. After the park was established in 1913, the Ojibwe village at Sturgeon Lake/Kawa Bay was surrounded by parkland, and by 1915 the Kawa Bay Reserve was dissolved by the Canadian government. Despite this, Bakindegiishik and his extended family decided to remain at Kawa Bay — which one could see as an act of resistance, choosing to remain where there was good fishing, moose hunting, trapping and berry picking.
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Featured image: Village on Basswood Lake near Winton, Minnesota. John Blackstone in foreground, 1903. Photo Courtesy of USDA-Superior National Forest collection, Iron Range Discovery Center, Chisholm, MN
