The Tahquamenon River (rhymes with phenomenon) flows north into Lake Superior, after winding nearly 100 miles through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to empty into Whitefish Bay. From swamps lined with hemlock and spruce, their tannins having stained its rushing waters brown, it passes here, over the Upper Falls in Tahquamenon State Park, falling 50 feet from a magnificent rocky bed, 200 feet across.
A viewing platform holds visitors from the edge and steers them along a partially paved, intermittently boarded walkway, scattered with signs and heavily treed with birch and dense evergreen.
Years ago, the Ojibwa walked these woods—traveling this river in their birch bark canoes, hunting these woods from its shore.
We stepped from the boardwalk, leaving the hollow footsteps of galloping children at the river’s edge, and entered the dark and quiet woods. A narrow, marked trail crossed a small feeder stream then climbed up a hill where patches of sunlight fed an assortment of ferns on its bank, and heavy moss grew soft on fallen logs beneath their shadow. Though still September, already the leaves of poplar and birch were fading and fallen—the winding trail, no more than an earthen path between them. And our footsteps, barely heard.
From behind a small hemlock, scurrying steps suddenly stopped. And we peeked beneath its lowest branch to see three dark birds, just off the trail, several feet in front of us. Not rising in the flurry of flapping wings as I would have expected, the small group of Ruffed Grouse barely moved, disappearing in their stillness against the shaded leaves. And as I sat squarely on the dirt, inching forward with my camera, they stayed, perched on the low branches, peeking back at me. Then in no hurry, stepped off and crossed to the other side of the trail, following the hillside past the patches of sunlit fern.
Here, on a quiet trail in the land of Tahquamenaw, it was as it could have been, in years past.
As if I walked in Hiawatha's footsteps.
From an assortment of sources, I have learned that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, The Song of Hiawatha, which was written based upon legends of the Ojibwa and other Native American peoples, refers to “the rushing Tahquamenaw,” a spelling variation coming from an Ojibwa word meaning “dark berry.”
Written in several forms, some dating back to Jesuit maps published in 1672, this word has varied in spelling from Outa koua minan to Otikwaminang, Outakwamenon, Tanguamanon, Toumequellen and Tahquamenaw.
"The current name for the Tahquamenon River in the Ojibwa language is Adikamegong-ziibi, "River at where the Whitefish are found." This name is also the naming basis for the Whitefish Point and Whitefish Bay, both known earlier as Tahquamenaw."
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