John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater — a Metis and Anishinaabe couple— lived most of their adult lives on Basswood Lake. Tchi-Ki-Wis was a Lac La Croix Band member and related to many Border Lakes Anishinaabe people might know such as the Powells and Caribou family at Grand Portage and Lac La Croix. John was Metis, of Anishinaabe, Cree, Orkney, and Welsh descent. His family have multi-generational roots working for and trading with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Ontario, Manitoba and further North.
The presentation is a biographical description of their lives and the impacts of their lives on others such as Sigurd Olson, university biologists, and the creation of Isle Royale National Park. Tchi-Ki-Wis was also an expert artisan of a now largely lost Anishinaabeg craft, the making and weaving of mats from the inner bark of cedar into geometric designs.
Tim Cochrane served as the superintendent of Grand Portage National Monument for twenty years. His books include Minong-The Good Place: Ojibwe and Isle Royale, Gichi Bitobig, Grand Marais: Early Accounts of the Anishinaabeg, and A Good Boat Speaks for Itself: Isle Royale Fishermen and Their Boats. He lives outside of Grand Marais. Besides researching and writing he enjoys ‘foraging’ for maple sap for syrup, wild rice, and growing apples for apple cider.
All presentations are family friendly and free to the public – donations are always appreciated.
