The Mysterious Pukaskwa Pits and Other Cultural Sites on Lake Superior

Along the cobbled beaches of Pukaskwa National Park, on the north shore of Lake Superior, lie mysterious pits one to two and a half metres long and about a metre and a half high. It’s now estimated that the ancestors of the Ojibway dug these out between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago. Some of the pits are now even submerged because the lake wasn’t as high back then as it is today.

It’s not known why the original inhabitants of this area made these excavations. Perhaps they were used as temporary shelters or places to store food. Possibly, hunters created them to serve as blinds from which they could ambush passing caribou and other wildlife. Then, again, they may have been spiritual spaces or sites for initiations of some kind. We simply do not know.