Baraga Municipal Marina

Tucked at the bottom of a hillside going down to the west shore of Keweenaw Bay, the village of Baraga, population 1,250, is located at a natural townsite, one of those congenial protected spots along the Great Lakes that the French voyageur in the fur trade liked to use for camps in the 1800s. Baraga the town and Baraga County are both named after Frederic Baraga, the famous “snowshoe priest” from Slovenia. He established his last mission at Assinins two miles north of here in 1843. He helped native Ojibwa here get title to their land, and enabled them to stay here rather than being relocated to the Great Plains by the United States government. Many Ojibwa have lived in the area ever since. Today they are a recognized tribe, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. Legal gambling on Indian reservations, begun in Michigan right here in Fred Dakota’s garage, has turned the tribe and its Ojibwa Casino into one of the few economic powerhouses in this small county of only 9,000 people. (The