St. Ignace, one of Michigan's oldest towns

Long before any European arrived, the Straits of Mackinac were a gathering place for the Anishinaabe — the Ojibwe and Odawa peoples — who had lived along these shores for thousands of years. The straits were a crossroads of the Great Lakes, and the spot that became St. Ignace was a natural place to fish, trade, and camp.

In 1671, a French Jesuit priest named Father Jacques Marquette arrived by canoe and founded a mission here, naming it for St. Ignatius of Loyola. That makes St. Ignace one of the oldest European settlements in Michigan — and one of the oldest in the whole Midwest. A French fort and a fur-trading village soon grew up around it, and for a time the straits were one of the most important crossroads in the Great Lakes. Marquette set out from here in 1673 on the famous journey that mapped much of the upper Mississippi River. He died two years later and was eventually brought back and buried in St. Ignace.

You can stand on that history today. In the heart of downtown, on the waterfront across from the Mackinac Island ferry docks, Marquette Mission Park and the Museum of Ojibwa Culture sit on the site of the original mission — the place where the Ojibwa, Huron, and French stories met. The museum, housed in a historic chapel, tells that story from the Native point of view, and Father Marquette’s grave is on the grounds. You can learn more at museumofojibwaculture.net.