We had an interesting day learning about the history of this
area. The first stop was Grand Portage State Park to see High Falls and
the Pigeon River. The Ojibway tribe leased 278 acres of land to Minnesota
for the state park which made the falls easily accessible for viewing and would
hopefully bring more tourists.
The Pigeon River is the border with Canada. There’s a
much larger provincial park on the Canadian side where two more falls are
accessible but we didn’t have time to do that one too.
High Falls is the biggest waterfall in Minnesota at 120 feet
high. There’s an area not visible to the right in the picture where a
flume was built to better get logs over the falls. (Log jams and shattered logs
were costly.) It’s hard to imagine how much water comes down this river
during the spring snow melt when water is all the way over the rocks on the
right and almost to the top of the rise between the split falls. The
information board said the flow rate is 3200 gallons per second.
Cliffs on the Canadian side of the river. They’re a
type of rock called diabase which 1.1 billion years ago was molten magma that
pushed up through cracks in overlying sandstone and shale layers to form
erosion-resistant dikes. It’s part of the Mid-continent Rift which runs
from Lake Superior to Kansas. The mountains along the lake shore are
diabase. Mount Josephine is the highest at 1300 feet (750 feet above the
lake). I said yesterday it was down near Grand Marais but discovered
today it is right over Grand Portage.
After seeing the falls we went to the Grand Portage National
Monument and the Ojibway heritage center which is part of it. The
Ojibway and the Park Service worked together to create this area hoping to
attract more tourists and help the poor local economy. I haven’t read
anything about how successful it’s been but the parking lot has been full each
time we’ve driven by. If that’s any indication it has to be bringing in
tourist dollars.
Indians have been here for about 2000 years (the Ojibway
since 1600) and had known about the Grand Portage (as the portage trail was
named) long before Europeans arrived here. Indians guided the Europeans
throughout the area. It was generally a mutually beneficial arrangement
which was based on trading European goods for furs, unlike in other places where
taking over the Indians’ lands was the goal. When the English and French
started competing with each other for furs problems increased both for the
Indians and the animals. The French tried to pay the least amount
possible for furs, including cutting out the Huron middlemen. Because of
the competition the English raised the prices they paid which caused the
Indians to over-harvest furs without regard for sustainability. As usual
one problem led to another.
These are Ojibway dwellings with birch bark coverings. They used
birch bark for housing, transportation (canoes), containers, baskets and many
other things. Birch roots were used to stitch the bark sections
together. The bark was taken from the trees in such a way that the trees
weren’t permanently damaged. The Ojibway were able to get what they
needed for survival without harming their environment. They had a sacred
relationship with the land and all it provided, leaving offerings to the plants
and trees whenever they harvested food and other necessities.
The heritage center is a partially reconstructed Ojibway
village and other buildings which would have belonged to the North West
Company’s trading post. No part of the original post was left but
archaeologists found where some of the buildings were and have done a
reconstruction based on their research.
These are replica birch bark canoes in the trading company’s
warehouse. The park service’s historical interpreter noticed Jim’s
Asheville Tourists shirt and asked if that’s where we were from. Turns
out she lives in Boone and teaches history at Appalachian University.
Another “small world” incident.
Reconstructed North West Company trading post. It’s a
large building with a great hall for dining, meetings and trading, and four
corner rooms. In this building one of the corner rooms was the clerks’
office where all paperwork was handled, one was a replica trading room, one
showed various trade goods and one was a bedroom. In the original
building all four rooms were bedrooms for the highest ranking shareholders of
the company who were put up in relative comfort when they came for their annual
meetings. There was another building which housed lesser shareholders,
still inside in comfort. The rest of the participants in the Rendezvous
were outside in or under whatever they could find.
The Rendezvous, which took place every year from 1778 to
1805, was when everyone arrived for the trading event of the year. Furs
arrived from up north and trade goods arrived from Montreal. Canoe men
(nicknamed “Pork Eaters”) had to paddle 12 to 14 hours a day non-stop for 6 to
7 weeks to bring the goods 1400 miles from Montreal.
Voyageurs and
the “winterers” from northwest Canada had to bring their cargoes of furs as
much as 2000 miles from as far away as the Arctic. The “winterers” were
employees of the North West Company who had to spend the winters at posts near
the Indian trappers. The voyageurs at Rendezvous were such a rowdy
drunken bunch some of the Ojibway would move their families out to Isle Royale
and the other islands during this period so they didn’t have to deal with
them. The voyageurs lived a hard life, working extremely long and hard
hours, so it’s no wonder they cut loose between getting to the end of one
journey and starting back on the next.
Replica of a trading room, full of furs and other
goods. Looking at all those beautiful furs, I couldn’t help but
think of all the animals who lost their lives just so people could wear their
coats.
The fashionable hats of the elite of the 18th and
19th century…..the reason the beaver population was decimated
in North America. There were tens of millions of beaver before it was
discovered that their under-fur made the best felt for gentlemen’s hats.
For decades there were about 180,000 beaver pelts taken through Grand Portage
every year (not to mention all the other trading companies). By the time
beaver fur went out of fashion (because silk took its place) the population is
estimated to have been a tiny fraction of that, probably around 6
million.
This river was the transportation route to move furs from
the northwest to Grand Portage for shipment to Europe, but there are 20 miles
of rapids and falls before getting to Lake Superior. The voyageurs who
transported the furs took advantage of the nine-mile portage trail created
hundreds of years ago by the Ojibwe to get from the navigable part of the river
to the lake. Each canoe carried up to 7,000 lbs of cargo…..furs coming
down and European trade goods going back up.....all of which had to be carried
on their backs on the portage trail. The furs were bundled in 90-lb packs
and each voyageur had to carry two at a time. The trail was rocky and
obstructed with roots so was a tough trip even without 180-lb loads.
Grand Portage was a bustling place in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries, but when beaver hats were no longer the height
of fashion the fur trade declined very rapidly. Everyone had to adjust
and find other ways to make a living.
Tomorrow we’re going to drive up to Thunder Bay, Ontario,
which is only 46 miles up the lake. I’m keeping my fingers crossed our
GPS will be able to find what I ask it to since we won’t have the smartphone
for help.
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