Chequamegon

Chequamegon Bay is an inlet on the southern shore of Lake Superior. Its Ojibwe name refers to a sandbar or strip of land extending into the water. In the mid-seventeenth century a village grew on the bay among Petun, Huron and Odawa refugees fleeing war farther east. Ojibwe people later came to trade there, and the bay became a meeting place for Indigenous communities and French visitors.

The French fur traders Radisson and Des Groseilliers built a shelter on the bay's western shore around 1658. Missionaries followed: Claude Allouez established a mission house in 1665, and Jacques Marquette came in 1669. A French fort was built on Madeline Island in 1718, serving the fur trade until the French withdrawal during the Seven Years' War.