Monday, October 6, 2008

A Look at History



On the back of a storefront on the other side of town, there is a mural of the Little Traverse Wheelway from Pre-European times to Present. Over the next few days, we'll look at what this artist thought of this area.

In the first painting, this area was populated by the Odawa Indians and this area was used as they migrated with the different harvests all along this coastline. The second section is a painting of the wooden wheelway that they had along the coast for bicycles of the type shown, but it was not for horses and buggies--they had to use the road.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

The models for this painting were actual members of the little traverse bay bands of odawa indians. The young female nishinaabequay (Indian Lady) is fashioned after Crystal Greensky. Her ancestors attended Greensky Hill Indian Mission Church in Charlevoix Michigan (formerly Pine River). This Mission Church was started by Peter Greensky. Also, the children are Walker-Worthington children. Additionally, the male subject was largly a portrayal of two other respected members of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians being Douglas Wemigwase and Leonard "joe" Mitchell. Joe Mitchell is a highly respected elder of the LTBB Tribe and Douglas is an exceptional youth who will undoubtable be a future leader of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. So, just in case anyone wanted to know, these individuals who dedicated their time to be the models for this equisite rendition where not otherwise arbitraily selected as representatives of our the LTBB.

Unknown said...

FYI The models for this painting are actual members of the little traverse bay bands of odawa indians (hereafter LTBB). The young female nishinaabequay (Indian Lady) is fashioned after Crystal Greensky. Her ancestors attended Greensky Hill Indian Mission Church in Charlevoix Michigan (formerly Pine River), as did many of the members of the LTBB. This Mission Church was started by Peter Greensky. Also, the children are Walker-Worthington children, whom represent our future. Additionally, the male subject was largly a conglomoration portrayal of two other respected members of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians being Douglas Wemigwase and Leonard "joe" Mitchell. Joe Mitchell is a highly respected elder of the LTBB Tribe and Douglas is an exceptional young man who will undoubtable be a future leader of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in the years to come. So, just in case anyone wanted to know, these individuals who unselfishly dedicated their time to be the models for this equisite graphic rendition where not simply arbitraily selected as representatives of the Odawa Indians who traversed this path since time immemorial.

Christie said...

Thank you for letting us know! I didn't even know this mural was there until my mom told me about it--she rides the bike path more often than I do!