In reality, Kitch-iti-kipi (the correct spelling), "the Big Spring," is part Palms Book State Park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a two hundred feet wide, 40-foot deep freshwater spring, and the state's largest. The clear, spring-fed pond has self-operated observation rafts, allowing visitors a look into the underwater world below. Kitch-iti-kipi was supposedly a young chieftain whose girlfriend got the best of him. As a test of his devotion, the maiden declared that he must set sail in his canoe on the pool and catch her from his canoe as she leaped from an overhanging bough. While she returned to camp and laughed with others about this silly quest, the young chieftain's canoe tipped over in the spring, later renamed in honor of the young Indian who went to his death in the icy waters. The name is thought to have numerous other meanings in the Chippewa language: the Great Water; the Blue Sky I See; or the Roaring, Bubbling Spring.

Most interesting is that the spring was discovered by John I. Bellaire, who could have purchased the beloved property for himself. Instead he wanted the land preserved for all to enjoy and in 1926 the State of Michigan purchased the land for $10, with the stipulation that the land "be forever used as a public park."