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First People of Akron and Summit County Remembered and Celebrated

The Portage Path Walk
TIM RUDELL
/
WKSU
The Portage Path Walk

The traditional clothing, music and dance of the first people of America were a part of the third annual “Walk of The Portage Path” Monday in Akron. 

Visiting Northern Cheyenne students put on a traditional dance exhibition
Credit TIM RUDELL / WKSU
/
WKSU
Visiting Northern Cheyenne students put on a traditional dance exhibition

The march, along Portage Path from Highland Square to the Perkins Mansion, drew several hundred participants.  It is the concluding event of a four-day celebration of the First-People of Akron and Summit County.  The Portage Path Collaborative—including the Summit County Historical Society—puts it on each year. 

Dave Lieberth is an organizer.  “The whole point of our doing the Portage Path Collaborative is to provide education to the students and the public about the original people who lived here.  We’ve had land occupied here for as long as ten thousand years.  And we know that the Portage Path is one of the oldest landmarks on the North American landscape.”

Other collaborators include the Lippman School, the Portage Path Community Learning Center, and the Montana Northern Cheyenne Nation.

Copyright 2021 WKSU. To see more, visit WKSU.

Tim Rudell
Tim Rudell has worked in broadcasting and news since his student days at Kent State in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when he earned extra money as a stringer for UPI). He began full time in radio news in 1972 in his home town of Canton, OH.