Menominee River
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- This article is about the river in Wisconsin and Michigan. For the Illinois river, see Menominee River (Illinois). For the river in southeastern Wisconsin, see Menomonee River.
The Menominee River is a river in northwestern Michigan and northeastern Wisconsin in the United States. It is approximately 118 mi (190 km long), draining a rural forested area of northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan into Lake Michigan. Its entire course, with that of its tributary, the Brule River, forms part of the boundary between the two states.[1][2]
It is formed along approximately 10 mi (16 km) northwest of Iron Mountain, Michigan by the confluence of the Brule and Michigamme rivers. It flows southeast, past Kingsford, Michigan and Niagara, Wisconsin, then generally south, making broad meanders collecting the Sturgeon, Pemebonwon and Pike rivers. It enters the Green Bay on Lake Michigan from the north between Marinette, Wisconsin and Menominee, Michigan.
Along its course the Menominee River has been converted into a series of large and beautiful reservoirs. The waters contained in these reservoirs are some of the areas deepest and cleanest lakes. Many of the lands that around those waters are managed for recreational use, which ensures conservation and restricts shoreline development. The lakes are pristine, wild shores of forest lands instead of rows of cottages and docks.[3]
The region through which the river flows was formerly a center of iron ore mining.
The name of the river comes from the name of an Algonquian language term meaning "wild rice," or "in the place of wild rice," named for the Menominee tribe who lived in the area and subsisted on the plant. The Chippewa lived in the upper portion of the river basin and referred to the river as "Me-ne-cane Sepe" or "Many Little Islands River".
Among the Sixty Islands stretch of the river is Namacachure, a wooded island dividing the channel of the Menominee River. Native Americans believed that the spirit of a lost maiden lived in this sacred place and when passing would say a good luck prayer and leave a tobacco offering. Legend has it that at night she would come out of the eddy in the river to comb her beautiful hair and talk to her parents. She would ask them to take their home at this beautiful place along the Menominee River where game is plentiful and fish abundant.[4]
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