Watersmeet Township, Michigan | |
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![]() Location within Gogebic County (red) and the administered community of Watersmeet (pink) | |
Coordinates: 46°15′32″N89°15′57″W / 46.25889°N 89.26583°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Michigan |
County | Gogebic |
Government | |
• Supervisor | Mike Rogers |
• Clerk | Sandy Mansfield |
Area | |
• Total | 277.8 sq mi (719.5 km2) |
• Land | 254.8 sq mi (659.8 km2) |
• Water | 23.1 sq mi (59.7 km2) |
Elevation | 1,736 ft (529 m) |
Population (2020) | |
• Total | 1,456 |
• Density | 5.8/sq mi (2.2/km2) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
ZIP code(s) | 49969 (Watersmeet) |
Area code | 906 |
FIPS code | 26-84380 [1] |
GNIS feature ID | 1627220 [2] |
Website | Official website |
Watersmeet Township is a civil township of Gogebic County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,456 in 2020. [3]
The Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation is located in two small segments within Watersmeet Township. [4]
The Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation was established by treaty under the United States in 1854. The Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, part of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians, have occupied this territory since the 17th century. The band owns and operates a resort on the reservation, which includes a casino and golf course. [5]
The unincorporated community of Watersmeet is within the township on the middle branch of the Ontonagon River near the junction of U.S. Highway 2 and U.S. Highway 45 at 46°16′04″N89°10′40″W / 46.26778°N 89.17778°W . The European-American community of Watersmeet was platted in 1884, designated as a station of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railways. [6]
The now-explained Lights of Paulding occur nearby.
In late 2003 and early 2004, the boys' high school basketball team of the K-12 Watersmeet Township School was featured in a series of commercials on ESPN. ESPN chose Watersmeet for the commercials in part because of the school's sport teams' unusual nickname of Nimrods. The tag line of the commercials was "Without sports, who would cheer for the Nimrods?" The ads were so popular that the team, its coach, and octogenarian fan Dale Jenkins, all of whom were featured on the commercials, appeared on The Tonight Show on March 15, 2004.
The township and the Nimrods are the focus of an 8-part documentary, Nimrod Nation, which aired on The Sundance Channel. Filming started in September 2005 and continued until June 2006. Actor Robert Redford, one of the channel's owners and a champion of Native American issues, was reported to have been inspired to make the documentary when he learned that Watersmeet Township School's student body (and varsity basketball team) was approximately 50 percent Native American. [ dead link ] The documentary won a Peabody Award in 2007. [7]
Since that time, the township has consolidated schools. At the time, 9-12 grade enrollment was 78; the school system absorbed 13 of neighboring Marenisco's 60 K-12 students. [8] The Watersmeet township high school enrollment in 2005-2006 enrollment was a total of 96. [9]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 277.8 square miles (719 km2), of which 254.8 square miles (660 km2) is land and 23.0 square miles (60 km2) (8.30%) is water.
The climate is described as Humid Continental by the Köppen Climate System, abbreviated as Dfb. [10]
Climate data for Watersmeet, Michigan | |||||||||||||
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Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | −6 (21) | −3 (26) | 2 (36) | 11 (51) | 18 (65) | 23 (74) | 26 (78) | 24 (76) | 19 (66) | 13 (55) | 3 (37) | −3 (27) | 11 (51) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | −17 (1) | −16 (3) | −10 (14) | −3 (27) | 3 (38) | 8 (47) | 12 (53) | 11 (51) | 6 (43) | 1 (34) | −6 (22) | −13 (9) | 2 (36) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 41 (1.6) | 28 (1.1) | 43 (1.7) | 58 (2.3) | 89 (3.5) | 100 (4) | 91 (3.6) | 94 (3.7) | 91 (3.6) | 71 (2.8) | 58 (2.3) | 46 (1.8) | 810 (31.9) |
Source: Weatherbase [11] |
As of the census [1] of 2000, there were 1,472 people, 552 households, and 385 families residing in the township. In 2020, its population was 1,456. [3]
Indian Trails provides daily intercity bus service between St. Ignace and Ironwood, Michigan. [12]
Gogebic County is a county in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,380. The county seat is Bessemer. Gogebic County is the westernmost county in Michigan, and is one of four Michigan counties within the Central Time Zone. Gogebic County borders Wisconsin to the south, and has a shoreline on Lake Superior to the north.
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Marenisco Township is a civil township of Gogebic County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 455 at the 2020 census, a significant decrease from 1,727 at the 2010 census.
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Land o' Lakes is a town in Vilas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 861 at the 2010 census. The unincorporated community of Land o' Lakes is located in the town.
Phelps is a town in Vilas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,238 in 2020. The unincorporated community of Phelps is located in the town.
The L'Anse Indian Reservation is the land base of the federally recognized Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the historic Lake Superior Band of Chippewa Indians.. The reservation is located primarily in two non-contiguous sections on either side of the Keweenaw Bay in Baraga County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The Keweenaw Bay Community also manages the separate Ontonagon Indian Reservation.
Chippewa is an alternate term for the Ojibwe tribe of North America.
The Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is a federally recognized Ojibwa Native American tribe. It had 3,415 enrolled members as of 2010. The Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation lies mostly in the Town of Lac du Flambeau in south-western Vilas County, and in the Town of Sherman in south-eastern Iron County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It has a land area of 107.1 square miles (277.4 km2) and a 2020 census resident population of 3,518 persons. Its major settlement is the unincorporated Lac du Flambeau, which had a population of 1,845 persons.
The Fond du Lac Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in northern Minnesota near Cloquet in Carlton and Saint Louis counties. Off-reservation holdings are located across the state in Douglas County, in the northwest corner of Wisconsin. The total land area of these tribal lands is 154.49 square miles (400.1 km2). It is the land-base for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Before the establishment of this reservation, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were located at the head of Lake Superior, closer to the mouth of the Saint Louis River, where Duluth has developed.
Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is the popular name for the land-base for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Central Minnesota, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Minneapolis-St. Paul. The contemporary Mille Lacs Band reservation has significant land holdings in Mille Lacs, Pine, Aitkin and Crow Wing counties, as well as other land holdings in Kanabec, Morrison, and Otter Tail Counties. Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is also the name of a formal Indian reservation established in 1855. It is one of the two formal reservations on which the contemporary Mille Lacs Band retains land holdings. The contemporary Mille Lacs band includes several aboriginal Ojibwe bands and villages, whose members reside in communities throughout central Minnesota.
Lac Vieux Desert is a lake in the United States divided between Gogebic County, Michigan, and Vilas County, Wisconsin. Fed primarily by springs in the surrounding swamps, it is the source of the Wisconsin River, which flows out of its southwest corner. The lake contains a number of small islands, especially in its northeastern lobe, including Draper Island, in Michigan, and Duck Island, in Wisconsin.
The Ottawa National Forest is a national forest that covers 993,010 acres (401,860 ha) in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It includes much of Gogebic and Ontonagon counties, as well as slices of Iron, Houghton, Baraga, and Marquette counties. The forest is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service.
The Ontonagon Indian Reservation is the homeland of a branch of the Lake Superior Chippewa Tribe. Its twelve bands were located throughout Michigan and the Upper Midwest.
The Lake Superior Chippewa are a large number of Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) bands living around Lake Superior; this territory is considered part of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States. They migrated into the area by the seventeenth century, encroaching on the Eastern Dakota people who had historically occupied the area. The Ojibwe defeated the Eastern Dakota, who migrated west into the Great Plains after the final battle in 1745. While they share a common culture including the Anishinaabe language, this highly decentralized group of Ojibwe includes at least twelve independent bands in the region.
Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation located in Watersmeet Township of southeastern Gogebic County, in the western part of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is the landbase for the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. According to the United States Census Bureau in 2020, the reservation has a land area of 0.419 square miles. The reservation consists of two sections in eastern Watersmeet Township. There were 221 people living on the reservation in the 2020 census.
Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is a band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, many of whom reside on the Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation, located near Watersmeet, Michigan. It is approximately 45 miles southeast of Ironwood, Michigan in Gogebic County.
Rice Bay, on the Michigan side of Lac Vieux Desert, contains a significant stand of wild rice traditionally managed and harvested by the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. The availability of wild rice, and the annual rice harvest, played a central role in Ojibwe migration to the area and led to the establishment of a seasonal, and later permanent, settlement in this location. The area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.