Communities across Michigan are gathering to celebrate the state's Indigenous roots this month as November marks Native American Heritage Month nationwide.

Present-day Michigan is the ancestral homeland of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi, Anishinaabe peoples forming the historic Council of Three Fires alliance, with the Indigenous presence pre-dating European settlements by more than 10,000 years.

"In the 1600s, the relationship the Anishinaabek had with their homelands drastically changed with the arrival of Europeans to the Great Lakes. Diseases, wars, and the efforts to remove the Anishinaabek from Michigan continued for centuries. Despite this, the Anishinaabek fought to remain," Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore 's website says.

The state is now home to 12 federal

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