The Name, the Jesuit, and the Odawa
Near Charlevoix, Michigan
Long before this town had a name, this whole coast belonged to the Odawa, also spelled Ottawa, who lived along these lakes for generations, fishing the deep cold water, hunting the woods, and planting seasonal gardens where the soil was warm. So where did a French-sounding name like Charlevoix come from? It honors Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, a French Jesuit priest, historian, and explorer who was sent by the king of France around seventeen twenty to travel the Great Lakes and search for a water route to the Pacific.
Local legend says that during one violent storm, Charlevoix took shelter for a night on Fisherman's Island, just southwest of here along the Lake Michigan shore, and that his name stuck to the land ever after. It is worth being honest about that story. Historians treat the overnight-on-the-island tale as tradition rather than proven fact, and the priest himself never settled here or founded the town.
The county and the city simply chose to carry his name much later. The people who actually knew every current and fishing ground on this water were the Odawa, and their presence here is the older, deeper history under the French label.
