A leisurely Look at Michigan’s stories and traditions from yesterday to yesteryear.
Like many Michiganians, this man and woman were engaging in some winter fun. Winter recreation has a long tradition in the state. Back in the 1700’s, Detroit’s French-Canadian residents held horse races on the frozen Detroit River…
GLCE: H3.0.7
Michigan’s pioneers—the first people of European decent to settle in various places throughout our state—wrote many accounts of their experiences. A woman who came to Yankee Springs in Southwestern Michigan when she was four years old created one of my favorite accounts. Mary Lewis Hoyt was over seventy when she wrote her story, but she painted wonderful word pictures that answer questions historians ask—
Where did people live?
How did they travel?
What did they eat?
What did they do for fun?
Can you imagine hunting elephants with weapons like these? Around 10,000 years ago, Paleo-Indian peoples hunted prehistoric elephants called mastodons using spears tipped with stone points. How were they able to do that? They were also armed with knowledge and cooperation. They knew a lot about their environment, including the habits of mastodons. And, since killing a mastodon required many spears, they had to assemble a group of several hunters and develop a strategy that would allow a handful of people to kill a large, powerful animal like a mastodon.
