Culture
Big Sandy Lake was inhabited by the Dakota Sioux until they were removed by the Ojibwa. In the Ojibwa language, the lake is known as Mitaawangaagamaa, meaning "Lake with flat, sandy beaches." The lake is home to the Sandy Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa who are now part of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, but have been working on regaining their independent recognition restored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
In 1798, North West Company maintained a post on on the western side of the lake; in 1830, American Fur Company established a post at the confluence of the Sandy River with the Mississippi River, a short distance west of the lake. Originally located on the north shore of Big Sandy Lake, the village of Gaa-mitaawangaagamaag was the western terminus of the Northwest Trail that connected the Mississippi River with the Saint Louis River; Savanna Portage State Park that commemorates this historic trail is located on the northeastern shore.
In 1850, the United States attempted to remove the Ojibwa population out of Michigan and Wisconsin to areas west of the Mississippi River, resulting in the Sandy Lake tragedy. A memorial commemorating the Sandy Lake tragedy was established at the United States Army Corps of Engineers Sandy Lake Dam Campgrounds. Along Minnesota State Highway 65, a rest area with a view of Sandy Lake was established, enhanced with a Historical Marker plaque to further commemorate the Sandy Lake tragedy.
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Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.”
—Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)
“In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,—not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The purpose of education is to keep a culture from being drowned in senseless repetitions, each of which claims to offer a new insight.”
—Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)