James J. Strang’s “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan”, 1853

Source

Dates: 1853-12-07 – 1854
Eras: Strang era
Concepts: fishingagricultureanishinaabe-odawahistoriographymaritime
Within: Beaver Island archipelago

Summary

In a letter dated 7 December 1853 from Saint James, James J. Strang supplied the Smithsonian with his “quite imperfect” lists and remarks on the natural history of the Beaver Islands. The printed report records his observations and second-hand accounts of domestic and wild animals, birds, local fish, fishing methods, and the commercial whitefish trade.

The letter reports that Garden Island residents relied on winter sturgeon fishing for subsistence, describes spearing through ice, and characterizes whitefish as the region’s most commercially valuable fish. Its statement that 50,000 barrels were taken annually “among the Beaver Islands” is Strang’s reported figure, not a verified production series. The same caution applies to species names, abundance, depth, seasonality, and the source’s terminology.

Evidence and limits

This is evidence of what Strang wrote and reported in 1853, and of the contemporary information he chose to send to the Smithsonian. It is not a neutral census of wildlife, a modern taxonomy, an Indigenous oral history, a title record, or proof that the people he described spoke for themselves. The source’s description of “the tribe of Indians residing on Garden Island” is retained as a historically situated attribution, not adopted as the project’s preferred collective name or as a complete account of Garden Island community life. It is not an independent account of Indigenous life or a complete record of the Garden Island community.

Read the document

480 pages, rendered from the held scan.

James J. Strang’s “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan”, 1853 — p. 1 — Page 1 of 480James J. Strang, “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan,” dated Saint James, Beaver Island, 7 December 1853, in *Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution* (1854), pp. 282–287.Open the page image · Download this page

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Sources

James J. Strang, “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan,” dated Saint James, Beaver Island, 7 December 1853, in *Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution* (1854), pp. 282–287.
Held public-domain report. Visually checked printed pp. 282–287: the letter is signed by James J. Strang at Saint James, Beaver Island, on 7 December 1853; it calls its own animal and plant lists “quite imperfect” and reports local observations and fishermen’s statements, including Garden Island winter sturgeon fishing, whitefish gear and seasonality, and a reported annual whitefish output. It is a contemporaneous source authored by Strang, not a modern ecological survey, a verified fisheries-statistics series, a complete species inventory, or an independent account of Indigenous life.
internet_archive · annual-report-board-of-regents-smithsonian_1854
Internet Archive DjVu OCR for the held Smithsonian Ninth Annual Report, 1854.
Searchable OCR locates the printed section and its page-range context, but readings and scientific names are checked against the held PDF rather than assumed correct from OCR.
internet_archive · annual-report-board-of-regents-smithsonian_1854
Internet Archive DjVu OCR provenance sidecar for the held Smithsonian Ninth Annual Report, 1854.
Records the Internet Archive derivative URL, retrieval metadata, checksum, and the OCR derivative’s identification of Strang’s section at printed pp. 282 onward. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
internet_archive · annual-report-board-of-regents-smithsonian_1854
Project provenance sidecar for the Smithsonian Ninth Annual Report PDF, retrieved 31 July 2026.
Records the Internet Archive source URL, retrieval time, checksum, file size, public-domain/open-access note, and identification of Strang’s section at pp. 282 onward. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
internet_archive · annual-report-board-of-regents-smithsonian_1854

Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes

Cite this article

Beaver Island Archive, “James J. Strang’s “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan”, 1853”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/documents/strang-natural-history-beaver-islands-1853/, accessed [date], citing James J. Strang, “Some Remarks on the Natural History of Beaver Islands, Michigan,” dated Saint James, Beaver Island, 7 December 1853, in *Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution* (1854), pp. 282–287. (and 3 further sources listed on the page).

Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.

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