Mitchell Museum program to explore North Shore's Native American past Sept. 30

The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian will host a talk about the Native American history of Northern Illinois and Chicago's North Shore region at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, September 30, followed by a bicycle tour of noteworthy Native sites in Evanston.

The program will be held at the Mitchell Museum, 3001 Central St., Evanston, which will also be the starting point for the optional bike tour. Participants must bring their own bikes. Fees for the lecture and tour are $12 for the general public, $10 for Mitchell Museum members, plus museum admission of $5 for adults, $3 for children, students, teachers and seniors. Museum admission is free for museum members and tribal members.

Author and award-winning educator Claiborne A. "Clay" Skinner will give the talk. Mitchell Museum staffers will lead the post-lecture bicycle tour.

Skinner, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote "The Upper Country: French Enterprise in the Colonial Great Lakes," published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2008. The book, which details French-Indian relations in New France and the Illinois country, has received praise for being "easily accessible and uninhibited by popular misconceptions."

Skinner teaches history at the Illinois Science and Math Academy in Aurora. He was named Illinois' 2008 Outstanding Teacher of American History by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Skinner will discuss the Native American peoples who have called the region home over the centuries, networks of overland Native trade routes –- some of which have become familiar local streets and roads —- and how the War of 1812 shaped today's political and geographical landscape, among other topics. (The War of 1812 is the subject of a newly opened Mitchell Museum exhibit.)

The independent, nonprofit Mitchell Museum is at 3001 Central St., Evanston. For information and program reservations phone (847) 475-1030 or email visitor.services@mitchellmuseum.org. Website: http://www.mitchellmuseum.org.

The organization is partially supported by a grant from the Evanston Arts Council, a city agency supported by the City of Evanston, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.