Arafed man in a brown vest standing next to a tree stump

Baron Bertrand Ogemaw holds loose governance over the rugged interior domain of Ogemaw County from his fortified timber trading hall Rifle River Fortress located deep in the backcountry forests at a strategic bend along the meandering Rifle River. His grandfather Bernard Ogemaw arrived from Quebec in the 1820s as an aspiring fur trader and married into the regional Ojibwe bands, fathering a dozen children with three successive wives as frontier mortality remained high. Raised indigenous as much as French Canadian, Baron Bertrand “Bear Runner” Ogemaw is a tall, imposing figure known for his fierce skills handling bears and wolf packs while snowshoe trekking trap lines each winter when pelts prove most lush. By spring, his river crews run undammed logs downstream to the sawmills of Bay City by following centuries old timber chutes. Come summer, Ogemaw Hall feeds visitors feasts from the forests and rivers tended by his people for generations. Fair minded but resistant to cultural assimilation pressures from Lansing politicos and Detroit dandies who see Ogemaw people as part of Michigan’s primitive past rather than vital future stewards guiding sustainable land practices, Baron Ogemaw trades beaver pelts, lumber planking and bear meat in return for practical metals, medicines and finely beaded attire - seeing little use for trinkets of frivolous luxury made fashionable to attract parlour room affection half a continent away along the fancy Atlantic Coast.