Hiawatha Pageant

Photographed By J. J. Prats, September 24, 2023

1. Hiawatha Pageant Marker, Side One

Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved.
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists

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of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest Wind, Keewaydin,
… To the land of the Hereafter.

The Hiawatha play performed at Round Lake or Wa-Ya-Ga-Mug Lake, was

Photographed By J. J. Prats, September 24, 2023

2. Hiawatha Pageant Marker, Side Two

extremely well attended with the dummy trains [one or two car shuttles pulled by small steam locomotives] running to and fro daily during the Summer performances. The November 1905 Acetylene Journal article ... written by L.O. Armstrong, the railroad agent who was promoting the Hiawatha play, told of the acetylene lighting illuminating the staging area. The grandstand for viewing the Hiawatha play, shown in the photo ... was described as standing “two hundred feet long and is two stories, the lower one of which consists of boxes and serves as a porch to the upper stand. There is accommodation for 2,500 people.” This is the same play with grandstand that James C. Whitfield, Sr., wrote of attending ...

“It was about that early time, too, that my folks took me over (from Walloon Lake) to a place on the Conway line of the GR&I called ‘Wa-yag-amug’. It was on the shore of Round Lake and was where the Indian pageant was put on, every afternoon in the summer. The entire cast was composed of local Indians and they enacted the Longfellow poem, ‘HIAWATHA’. We took the early afternoon train to Petoskey, then changed to the one for Conway and were let off at a special stop designated as ‘WA-YAG-AMUG’. We traipsed down to the lake and into a small pavilion built partly over the water of an inlet of the lake.

“The ‘stage’ consisted of the natural woods and shore of the opposite side of the inlet. An Indian teepee was set up there and all the trappings of the Indian village and beside a couple of real birch bark canoes, pulled up on the beach. The only white man in

Photographed By J. J. Prats, September 24, 2023

3. Hiawatha Pageant Marker

The pavement between the marker and the viewing platform was the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, now the Petoskey to Mackinaw bike and hiking trail. Rail shuttles from resorts around the lake would bring vacationers to and from the performances.

the presentation was George Franklin of Petoskey who read parts of Longfellow's poem hidden behind a rock on one side.

The play started and continued as the Indians moved about on the stage and ended as the villain of the poem was chased by the villagers and as he climbed to the top of the rock from where he jumped off into a pool of water and a stuffed beaver skin was floated up in his place. Then Hiawatha was supposed to die and that Indian stepped into a canoe beached in the lake itself, and holding a paddle straight up he was towed by an underwater rope to a spot on the farther shore where he stepped into the woods.

It was quite well done and I was thrilled, but what interested me most was the home made birch bark canoes in the play, and I kept thinking how wonderful it would be if I could make myself one.”
— James C. Whitfield, Sr.

On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O’er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.

Fiercely the red sun descending
Burned his way along the heavens,
Set the sky on fire behind him,
As war-parties, when retreating,
Burn the prairies on their war-trail;

And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward,
Suddenly starting from his ambush,
Followed fast those

(Public Domain) in the Little Traverse Historical Society collection via Walloon Lake Wanderings website, circa 1909

4. Pageant Location

The two-level grandstand for the audience is in the distance. The play was performed in the treed foreground, and on the water.

bloody footprints,
Followed in that fiery war-trail,
With its glare upon his features.

And Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
Spake these words to Hiawatha:
“Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather,
Megissogwon, the Magician,
Manito of Wealth and Wampum,
Guarded by his fiery serpents,
Guarded by the black pitch-water.

illustration by Harrison Fisher (Public Domain) in the 1906 Bobbs-Merrill edition The Song of Hiawatha, 1906

5. Hiawatha and Minnehaha

An illustration titled “Thus it was they journeyed homeward” from a book of Longfellow’s epic poem.

illustration by Harrison Fisher (Public Domain) in the 1906 Bobbs-Merrill edition The Song of Hiawatha, 1906

6. The Song of Hiawatha Finale

An illustration titled “Sailed into the fiery sunset” from a book of Longfellow’s epic poem.