Irpeeub] HIGHWAYS OF THE FUR TRADE 187 



Kaministigoya." 1 This evidently refers to Pigeon river, and the 

 Grand Portage route. 



La Verendrye in describing this route says that forty-seven 

 portages have to be made in going from Lake Superior to Rainy 

 lake, and he mentions another route farther north which involved 

 only nine portages, and was believed to be more practicable. This 

 northerly route proved on investigation to be unsatisfactory, as it 

 added many leagues to the journey, and was so shallow that eight- 

 seat canoes could not be taken through without great difficulty. He 

 therefore returned to the Grand Portage route, employing his men in 

 improving the navigation, reducing the portages to thirty-two, and 

 clearing the portage paths so that seven could be made in a day. It 

 is not certain if the more northerly route mentioned by La Verendrye 

 was that by the way of the Kaministikwia, or one of several variants 

 of the Grand Portage route. As has been noted elsewhere, La Veren- 

 drye makes no mention in any of his letters or memoirs of the ex- 

 plorations of De Noyon or La Noiie, and there is no reason to suppose 

 that he had ever heard of them. "Indeed, in studying this period 

 of western discovery, one is struck by the fact that each of the French 

 explorers worked independently, without availing himself of the results 

 of previous explorations, if indeed they had ever come to his knowl- 

 edge." 2 



A third route from Lake Superior to Rainy lake and the Lake of 

 the Woods was by way of the St. Louis river, at the extreme western 

 end of the lake, where the city of Duluth now stands. This 

 route was unknown, so far as we have any evidence, during the period 

 of French rule, though portions of it may have been traversed by 

 Dulhut 3 in the course of his explorations in the Sioux country 1678- 

 1681, and possibly by Radisson and Chouart 4 in 1661. A century 

 or more later (1767 to be exact) Jonathan Carver also used some of 

 these waterways on his way from the Mississippi to Lake Superior. 5 

 In 1798 David Thompson, astronomer of the North West Company, 

 made a rapid reconnaissance survey from the Assiniboine to the 



1 Margry, vi, 513 et seq. 



2 Burpee, "Canoe Routes from Lake Superior to the Westward," Geographical 

 Journal, Aug., 1910, p. 200. Further details of the development of the Kaminis- 

 tikwia and Grand Portage routes will be found in the article quoted above. The 

 first detailed description of the Grand Portage route is in Alexander Henry's 

 "Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, 1760-1776," 1809. 

 New éd., 1901. 



3 See his letters to Frontenac and de Seignelay, 1769 and 1685, in Dominion 

 Archives, "Posts in the Western Country," Vol. 16. Also Minn. Hist. Coll. I, 314. 



* See Radisson's Voyages, Prince Society, 1885, and Suite's article, R.S.C. 

 Trans. 1904. 



6 "Travels through the Interior Parts of North America," 1778. 



