Milt Powell, who grew up at the end of the Gunflint Trail, has a lot of great stories about his family’s history in Cook County. On March 9, he shared some of these stories with the community at a storytelling event at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts.
Powell showed a slide of himself as a baby with his parents and his sister (see above). He was wearing a rabbit skin coat and sitting on a toboggan pulled by sled dogs, his family’s main form of transportation.
The family grew potatoes, radishes, onions, and lettuce and hunted moose, deer, and bear, but they pooled their money with other families on Saganaga Lake to buy a season’s worth at a time of other groceries, spending about $200 a year.
Powell’s great-aunt was one of well-known Chief Blackstone’s daughters, and she died in 1956 at age 114. He used to listen to her tell stories in their native tongue.
Pictured here are Milt Powell as a baby with his parents, Sophie Conner Powell and Mike Powell, and his sister Vera.
This is part of a series about the tales of Cook County history that were shared at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts on March 9, 2013. The event was called “Stories you’ve never heard – and good ones to hear again!
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