The Ojibwe are one of the largest Indigenous nations in North America, with numerous bands whose territories once stretched from the Great Plains to the Atlantic seaboard, concentrated most densely around Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. The bands around Sault Ste. Marie occupied a strategic position at the falls of the St. Marys River, where whitefish gathered in such abundance that the rapids became a meeting ground for trade, diplomacy, and ceremony. French explorers arrived in the 17th century and established fur trading posts that grew into cosmopolitan settlements, mixing Native American, Metis, French, and Anglo-European cultures into a community unlike anything further east. The Bay Mills people lived through all of it: the fur trade era, the treaties that carved their homeland into cessions, and the 19th-century land grabs that left many Ojibwe bands without a single acre to call their own. Unlike some bands, Bay Mills persisted in place, maintaining their community along Whitefish Bay even as the political ground shifted beneath them.

The formal establishment of Bay Mills by Congress in 1860 gave the community legal standing, but it was the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 that gave it new political life. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, Bay Mills adopted a written constitution on November 27, 1937, creating a government structure that persists to this day. The federal government purchased land for the reservation, making Bay Mills one of only four reservations established in Michigan under the 1934 act. The community organized around a General Tribal Council, in which every voting-age member has a voice, with daily governance handled by a five-member Executive Council. At the time of its reorganization in 1937, the reservation encompassed a modest land base with a population of 812 persons. Since then, the tribe has steadily expanded its holdings to approximately 3,494 acres, of which about 3,109 are held in federal trust. The tribe also maintains a smaller parcel on Sugar Island in the St. Marys River southeast of Sault Ste. Marie.

Modern Bay Mills is a community that balances cultural preservation with economic pragmatism. The tribe operates Bay Mills Community College, one of Michigan's accredited tribal colleges, providing higher education rooted in Ojibwe language, culture, and history alongside standard academic programs. The Bay Mills Resort and Casino, located on Waiska Bay west of Sault Ste. Marie, provides the economic engine: 17,000 square feet of gaming floor with 695 slot machines and 13 table games, three restaurants, and a 144-room hotel. The casino's development was not without drama. Through the 1990s and 2000s, the tribe pursued land claims and casino proposals that stretched from Detroit to Port Huron, navigating a labyrinth of state referendums, congressional hearings, and legal battles before ultimately building at Brimley. The Biological Services Department works to protect the waters and wildlife that have sustained the community for generations, running programs in Great Lakes fisheries assessment, forest management, invasive species control, and water quality monitoring.

Clean water is not an abstraction for Bay Mills. The community's identity is inseparable from Lake Superior, Whitefish Bay, and the rivers that connect them. The tribe's environmental programs reflect that bond. EPA grants fund ongoing water pollution control, quality monitoring, and community education. The Biological Services Department monitors beach health, tracks invasive species, and manages inland fish and wildlife populations across both tribal trust lands and surrounding regions. These are not bureaucratic exercises; they are the modern expression of a relationship with the land that predates European contact by centuries. The Ojibwe fished these waters when the only boats were birch-bark canoes, and the Bay Mills community intends to ensure their descendants can do the same. In 2019, Bay Mills became the first tribe in Michigan to legalize recreational marijuana, a decision that included provisions to vacate previous tribal convictions for marijuana offenses, demonstrating the community's willingness to chart its own legal course on its own terms.