[burpee] HIGHWAYS OF THE FUR TRADE 185 



found in McLeod's Peace River, p. 47. * A more interesting account 

 is that of Captain (afterwards Sir John) Franklin, in his Journey to 

 the Polar Sea, ch. 2. 2 The route was by no means an easy one, in- 

 volving a number of portages, but it was preferable to the Nelson 

 whose tempestuous current and rapids made navigation both difficult 

 and dangerous. For a century and a half the Hayes has been the 

 recognized thoroughfare from Hudson Bay to Lake Winnipeg. 



Let us turn back now to the St. Lawrence and trace briefly the 

 opening up of the southerly fur trade route from Montreal to Lake 

 Winnipeg. During the French régime two water routes were recog- 

 nized, and used to a greater or less extent, from Montreal to Lake 

 Huron. One followed the Great Lakes by way of Niagara and 

 Detroit; the other the Ottawa river, Lake Nipissing and French 

 river to Georgian bay. Both led to the trading posts of Michilimacki- 

 nac and Sault Ste. Marie, and thence around the wild shores of Lake 

 Superior to the Kaministikwia and Grand Portage. So the present- 

 day quarrel between Montreal and Toronto as to the respective 

 merits or demerits of the Georgian Bay route and the Welland Canal 

 route may perhaps be traced back to the seventeenth century. Broadly 

 speaking, the Niagara route led to Detroit, to the Ohio, the Illinois 

 country, and the Mississippi; while the Ottawa route was the great 

 highway to the far west, although for a considerable period this was 

 also the recognized route to the Illinois and the Mississippi. The 

 use of the Ottawa route from Montreal to Georgian bay and Lake 

 Huron dates from the expeditions of Le Caron and Champlain in 

 1615, from those of Etienne Brûlé in 1622, of Nicolet in 1634 and 

 of Jogues in 1641. Around the shores of Lake Superior, the way was 

 led by Ménard in 1661, Radisson about the same time, Allouez in 1665, 

 and Dulhut in 1678. As to the Niagara route, its use may perhaps be 

 traced back to Brûlé's discovery of Lake Ontario in 1615, and Brébeuf 

 and Chaumonot's discovery of Lake Erie in 1640, or possibly Dallion's 

 visit to the Neutral Nation in 1626. At any rate, by 1679 not merely 

 canoes but La Salle's little ship the Griffon is navigating the waters 

 of Lake Erie and Lake Huron; and in 1701 Cadillac is founding a 

 trading post at Detroit. 3 



1 Peace River. A Canoe Voyage from Hudson's Bay to Pacific, by the late Sir 

 George Simpson, in 1828. Edited with notes by Malcolm McLeod. Ottawa, 1872. 



2 Narrative of a Journey to the shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21- 

 22. By John Franklin. London, 1823. 



3 See Lahontan's New Voyages to North America for an account of the route 

 from Montreal to Niagara, and Sabrevois' Memoir of 1718 (Wis. Hist. Coll., xvi, 

 363), for an admirably detailed description of the route from Niagara to Detroit 

 and the Illinois country. For the Ottawa route, in the early days, one cannot do better 

 than refer to Benjamin Suite's paper on "The Valley of the Grand River" (R.S.C. 

 Trans., 1898). 



