Discussion for “The Great Lakes Fishery, 1836-1965; sport fishing”
Discussion Leader: Greg Hanson
Rappotour: Jeremy Skaw
March 3, 2008
1. Why do you think the locals didn’t stick together
and form their own large scale company to compete with the incoming large
companies?
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2. Once fish numbers started to decrease, why wasn’t
any action taking to preserve the fishery, such as homewaters, by state
or federal governments?
Homewaters are areas on a body of water where a certain fisherman or group
of them would go to fish each year, and nobody else could. It’s
thought to be like owning the water such as a person would own land and
these homewaters could be passed down from generation to generation. This
didn’t occur in the Upper Michigan lakes region because the white
man hadn’t been residing in the area long enough to establish this “homewater” system. Also,
many people who would fish the Michigan area were usually nomad-like and
didn’t really set up a permanent residence. Fishermen may have
fished the same spot each year, but these spots weren’t declared
their own such as the homewaters found in the New England area.
3. Why didn’t federal policy support any other economic
ventures other than agriculture?
Farming was cheaper to support at the time because of the very short growing
season in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The fisheries industry
would have demanded money on a year-round basis, whereas farming would
only have three or four months of support. Also, by having Indians
stay farmers, they could be closer to become more civilized, whereas fishing
would be closer to a “nomad hunting and fishing group”. The
white man, at the time, was attempting to convert Indian culture to a similar
one as the white man had. So supplying money to Indians to keep up
their fishing industry would be a turn in the wrong direction.
4. Was there any way for Indians to profit off of this fishery
rather than be pushed around by the big companies and remain in poverty?
The Indians didn’t want to change, because they found no need for
it. The rest of the world is but they have been fishing this was
for many generations and it has worked, so they found no reason for it. The
whites thought that it would be beneficial to them to change so that they
could make a profit, cultural traditions are very important within the
Indian peoples. Also the Indians didn’t have enough money to
start up and compete with the whites in the fishing market. Half
of the fishermen in the 1870’s were Indians. They acquired
skills because the Indians were the ones that set and pulled the nets. But
when the captains of these boats, usually whites, would sell their catch,
the Indians pay wouldn’t increase.
5. Why could the Indians not benefit more from the tourism in
the region?
Tourism, back in the late 1800’s, consisted mostly of upper-class
people. When these wealthy people would go on vacations to the Upper
Peninsula, they were looking to stay are something really fancy and expensive. They
would rather go horseback riding and drink champagne then go stay at a
wooden hut in the middle of the woods and have an Indian take them fishing
and hunting.
6. Why were the Native American allotments only set aside for
ten years, where after those ten years they became saleable again and almost
all the land was brought by non-Indians?
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7. Did tourism bring the local economy down even more for the
long-time residents or did it bring opportunity to some?
Residential development greatly disturbed the natural setting there because
of wealthy people. The local people couldn’t afford to build
big houses or create businesses. So the entrepreneur white man seized
this opportunity to make a quick buck and set up businesses and “shut
out” the Indians to the tourism market. Indians didn’t
fully understand of capitalism or economic opportunities, so they didn’t
know right away on what chance they had stolen from them.
8. In the present day, is tourism more effective in the
winter months of the year?
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Date created: January 10, 2000
Last modified: March, 2008
Copyright © 2008, George R. Spangler