One of the stories told at a storytelling event at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts in Grand Marais on March 9 was about how Devil’s Track River got its name. One of the speakers was Billy Blackwell, who talked about what his grandfather had to do with it. According to maps of the 1820s and ’30s, Devil’s Track River was known as manitobimadagakozibing – “Spirit Walks on the Ice,” Blackwell said. Years later, Blackwell’s grandfather Sam Zimmerman Sr. married a local Ojibwe woman, Jane Elliot May Maushkowash. Zimmerman lost a leg and got around on a peg leg, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he wanted to do, including snowshoeing. He left an odd track, however, because he used one snowshoe for his good leg, one for his peg leg, and one for his crutch. People said the odd prints left behind must be “the devil’s track,” and the name for the river and the lake stuck. Pictured here is a painting by Alice Powell of Zimmerman’s snowshoe tracks.
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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