Courtesy Chippewa County Historical Society
St. Marys River Rapids
An Ojibway legend about creation of the St. Marys rapids bears striking resemblance to the accepted scientific account of the forming of the rapids.
The legend, as cited in Stanley Newton’s The Story of Sault Ste. Marie, says that the rapids once were up at Nadowayaning, now called Nadoway Point, half a sun’s journey from Sault Ste. Marie by canoe. Naniboujou built a dam there to keep Kitchi Gami, the mighty Lake Superior, in check until the time came for it to breathe. When the dam was broken, many big stones placed by Naniboujou rolled to where Sault Ste. Marie is today and created the Bahweting, the “Place of the Rapids.”
The “legend” believed by geologists is similar – that 10,000 years ago, the waters of what became Lake Superior were confined at the east by a barrier that extended from Nadoway Point in Whitefish Bay to Gros Cap in Ontario.
As the last glacier receded, waters pouring in from the north and the west caused erosion of this barrier. The separate levels of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, and the formation of the rapids at the Sault, are believed to have occurred 2,000 to 3,000 years ago.
These rapids have long attracted the Ojibway people, netting whitefish near the foot of the rapids in the 1900s’ photo at top. Note the large dipnet held by the man in the bow of the canoe just right of center and the international railroad bridge in the background.