"Nine Nations" Notes 2

"Foundry"

Where do redheads come from? How did so many of them get to the Chesapeake Bay area?

In the mid-1800s the Bessemer steal making process was invented. In 1864 at Wyandotte, Michigan the first commercial pour of Bessemer steel was mad in North America. From those ingots the first steel railroad track was made.

The "Foundry" is what, not very long ago, we were calling the "rust belt."

A great advantage of the area were its water ways: The Great Lakes, the Ohio River, the Erie Canal, etc. Those water ways are still the cheapest way to move heavy bulky items.

Mr Ford did a lot in the Foundry. He put a lot of men to work, including 'SWAT' teams of strike breakers.

The present 'ressesion' may be said to have some of its earlier roots in the Foundry. Great numbers of men there felt loss of identity and self-respect along with loss of their livelihoods. Now some new productivity is alive there.

I think that the Saint of our local "Mexamerica" mount San Jacinto is the St Hyacinth known to the Polish Catholic workers who once populated the Hamtramic area of Detroit.

Detroit has the largest concentrations of Arab-Americans on the continent. Who remembers Danny Thomas?

Remember the problem with the Three Mile Island reactor? Three Mile Island is in the Foundry, just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Some of the worst chemical dumps may be in "Dixie," but Love Canal is better known thanks to Hooker Chemical. Houston Ship Chanel is bad, but it was the Cuyahoga River of the Foundry that burst into flames. Lake Erie of the Great Lakes nearly died and doesn't feel very well today.

Manitoulin Island

Seems like I've written about Manitoulin before. I wonder what it means. Sounds holy.


Please feel free to set me right where I go wrong.


Manitoulin may be the biggest fresh water island in the world, but it is only one of the about 30,000 on Lake Huron. Nice place for a boat or canoe.


I guess that there are seven or eight Indian Reservations in the area. The island is probably important to most of the people on those Reservations. To some it might seem a bit like Vatican City.


I can't name the tribes, clans, or groups there. They have probably been called Huron or Ojibwa. I believe that there are people there who proudly call themselves Wikemikong and M'chigeeng; the later reminds me of Michigan.


Who will tell me more of these things?