Pokagons
Bob Jurgens[i]Bob and I were almost the same age, but as our birthdays lined up with the school schedules – mine in Michigan and his in Indiana – he ended up a year ahead of me in school. It didn’t matter because the last thing either of us wanted to talk about was school, with boats, outboard motors, and girls holding higher priorities, albeit not necessarily in that order. He lived in Highland, Indiana, South of Chicago, and his family spent summers at The Lake. The two of us were inseparable from Memorial Day till Labor Day, every year for over a decade. and I probably started exploring the north end of the lake in the early 1950s, around the age of 10 or so. The full length of The Lake would have been a long way to row a boat, but Bob’s dad was a dentist in Hammond, Indiana, so he had plenty of money and loved to spend it on their place at The Lake. A 5-horse Johnson outboard turned what would have otherwise been an exhausting all-day ordeal into many exciting afternoon adventures.
The north shore at the time was only half developed, from Thompson’s Landing to about halfway toward the little lake. The remaining, almost impenetrable dense hardwood forest was totally unexplored territory as far as we were concerned.
We were probably in the 5th or 6th grade at the time, which was about the same time kids of the 1950s studied their State’s history, and for Michigan, that included learning about the indigenous[ii]I always remind myself that there are no indigenous people in the Americas – only visitors from 13,000 years ago. Potawatomi Nation. The renderings of bloody battles in the history book made it pretty clear to us that they were not friendly toward the invaders of their territory by Europeans like us. There were several bands or tribes within the Potawatomi, and one particular one was the Pokagon. We had both seen the sign on a building next to the river in Mendon bearing that name, so we imagined them living there and navigating down the river to The Lake. I don’t think it ever occurred to either of us that the river in Mendon is not the same river that connects to The Lake. We were pretty sure that those indians were still living in the forest on the north end of The Lake, so even though we never saw any direct evidence, we always stayed close to the opposite shore to avoid the risk.
By: Jim
Written: mid-1980s
Published: July 30, 2025
Revised: September 23, 2025
Revised: October 8, 2025
Revised:
Revised:
footnotes
| ↑i | Bob and I were almost the same age, but as our birthdays lined up with the school schedules – mine in Michigan and his in Indiana – he ended up a year ahead of me in school. It didn’t matter because the last thing either of us wanted to talk about was school, with boats, outboard motors, and girls holding higher priorities, albeit not necessarily in that order. He lived in Highland, Indiana, South of Chicago, and his family spent summers at The Lake. The two of us were inseparable from Memorial Day till Labor Day, every year for over a decade. |
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| ↑ii | I always remind myself that there are no indigenous people in the Americas – only visitors from 13,000 years ago. |