Last day in Marquette

Went to the Marquette County History Museum today, where I saw an exhibit on the earliest settlers of Marquette. Looked especially closely at the French Canadian stuff. Mostly, they were lumberjacks. I saw photos of what the lumber camps were like - crowded, sparse. Like prisons more than anything. My mother, who I spoke to on the phone, confirmed that my great-grandfather indeed was a lumberjack here. (Wish I'd talked to her about this before, instead of deducing based on research! But, was happy to see I'd guessed correctly.) Was cool to see the clothes the lumberjacks wore (fur gloves, long underwear, wool hats, etc.), and the tools they used. Yep, these people were cutting trees all day with little hand-held axes.

Also saw a bit about the culinary preferences of each ethnic group here, and one favorite snack among the French-Canadians, of course, was this maple syrup, brown sugar, butter concoction they'd cook and then place on snow to cool; the end result would be a taffy like candy. This started me thinking about how who you are - where you were born, who your 'people' are - affects your food cravings, your preferences. I thought warmly, fondly, of my mother, who LOVES maple-sugar candy, and, on pancakes, likes maple syrup AND brown sugar. She's a French-Canadian through and through.

Also saw from the exhibit, how the various ethnic groups here would have little festivals or societies to celebrate their heritage (the French-Canadians had a church - St. Jean de Baptiste - and church festivals), and that, eventually, over time, sometime in the 1900's, these societies, groups, etc., faded out, and everyone became sorta one big miscegenated culture. This sorta made me sad. I *like* being French-Canadian, and hate to see identifying aspects of that fade away. Food, language, cultural appearance...I guess these are the biggies. I like the idea of preserving these things.

Also realized that the European settlers - of course - took the land from the native americans who'd been here forever before, and that this only happened about 150 years ago...like 2 lifetimes ago. How horrible. Made me think about what we consider "advancement," and how such is actually quite violent and brutal, and these thoughts distilled after hours of thinking about it, make me think that status quo is actually good. We will never survive by pushing and pushing to "advance" and be bigger and stronger and more influential. We'll die off in a fraction of the time populations such as the native americans existed doing what they did.

The purpose of life? To exist. Persist. The native americans had it right. Just keep doing what works. European culture destroyed this notion. Anxiety over *not* doing better turned on them, us, and now, we have a world that will not sustain itself for much longer. We could have persisted endlessly, perhaps, but European settlers ensured a quick, anxious, wasteful demise.

I feel, slightly, like I've felt meeting some of my favorite writers: a bit disappointed. That is, now that I know my history a bit better, there are things I almost wish I didn't know. It was almost better to fantasize, than to realize how we participated in the destruction of a peaceful/better way of life, how my great-grandfather was participating in an archaic, brutal mindset toward women (getting a 13 year old pregnant...), etc.

Cool to have been here, seen this, felt all this, though. I definitely feel wiser, more informed.

Tomorrow, I begin my 3 day trip to their birthplace, St. Norbert, Canada, about an hour north of Montreal.

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