Some people stayed and some left to begin a period of migration that lasted nearly 500 years and traced a path from the St. Lawrence River to the central Great Lakes area. The history of this migration is preserved in Ojibway oral history and birch-bark maps as well as detailed in archaeological evidence.
The full migration of the Ojibway ended at Madeline Island near Thunder Bay. Not all of the Anishinaabeg traveled this entire distance. At various stopping places on their migration, people would remain or turn and take a different route, often establishing new nations within the Anishinaabeg.