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Show 26 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 of the Northwest: the Grand Portage, from the bay of that name, or from Pigeon River, which empties into it, across to Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods; the other from Thunder Bay up the Kaministiquia and Dog River, and across by Lac des Mille Lacs and Sturgeon Lake and River to Rainy Lake. The latter was the route commonly followed by the early fur- traders; and the Northwest Company later established one of its principal stations at Fort William on Thunder Bay. This route was of great assistance in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which also runs from Port William up the Kaministiquia and crosses the divide not far from the old portage trail. From the Great_ Lakes ± o~ the- Mississippi basin there was a choice of paths. In the Northwest the French often crossed from the head of Lake Superior to the upper Mississippi by way of the St. Louis River. The most important portage, however, was probably that which led from the Fox to the Wisconsin JUver, first used in 1673 by Joliet and Marquette, 1 and later the site of Fort Winnebago. At the southern end of Lake Michigan an important trail led from the Chicago to the Des Plaines and so to the Illinois, on the same line as the present Chicago Drainage Canal; the portage was from four to nine miles in length according to the season. Other carrying- places of that region were from the Calumet to the Des Plaines, and from the St. 1 Jesuit Relations ( Thwaites* ed.), LIX., 105, 107. |