Who we are: Native Americans and First Nation People of Sault Ste. Marie - Pauwetiig at the Eastern End of the People's Great Water

The Anishnaabe Groups around the Big Lake were traditionally referred to as being of the places they inhabited. All Anishnaabeg (Original, or Spontaneously Created People) took some part of their identity from the place whose life they shared. Before the French arrived, it is thought that the people living along the rapids at the Sunrise end of the Big Lake were most well known among their relations as Pauwetiig Anishnaabeg.

When the French arrived, in the early 1600s, some Pauwetiig Anishnaabeg told stories of their Ancestors having come from the direction of the Sunset. Chippewa Indian Shelter - Wigwam

Many others spoke of being descendants of a people who had come from the Sunrise, from the Sea Coast, on a journey of many generations, arriving at Pauwetiig in the early 1400s. Some reported the Ancestors had always lived here, and had been created at the Rapids.

The French re-named Pauwetiig "Sault de Sainte Marie". The Pauwetiig Anishnaabeg then became known to the Europeans as Saulteurs. The Anishnaabe of Pauwetiig spread onward from the Big Lake across the Great Plains and as far as the Pacific Coast during the Fur Trade Era. They took along the names the Europeans had given them as they progressed across the Continent. They are known as Ojibwe, Chippewa, Chippeway, Saulteurs, Metis, and more.

Anishnaabe of Mixed Race began to appear almost as soon as the French arrived. Following the French, the British also took "Country Wives". All across the Continent you will find Anishnaabe persons with French and British names on their birth certificates. In modern times it is very common to find Anishnaabe marrying Non-Anishnaabe persons, creating ever more interesting variations of descendants. Anishnaabe of almost any color may be found wherever the drum is heard. The Anishnabe who stay here at the Rapids, and the other Indigenous Persons who come to join them as time goes by, may truly be called Pauwetiig Anishnaabeg.