The Old Boundary Fur Trade 



rip HE region lying north of Lake Superior to Hudson bay 

 i is a wonderful country. Thousands of lakes are dotted 

 with islands, their waters teeming with fish, while the 

 shores, covered with tall pine, birch and cedar, form great 

 forests traced with many paths of moose and deer. This is 

 the country of the Coeur de Bois of the French regime, and 

 in latter days the trapping ground of the Indians supplying 

 the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company. Prob- 

 ably the most picturesque period of the English fur trade in 

 Canada was about the last half of the eighteenth century. 



It was at this time that the route used to gain the interior 

 was identical with the present boundary between Minnesota 

 and Ontario, with the exception of the eastern end where the 

 Grand Portage was made into Lake Superior from Pigeon 

 river. Crossing this portage, a distance of nine miles, necessi- 

 tated going that distance through the territory of the United 

 States, and in 1798 our government levied a tax of twenty-five 

 per cent on all commodities thus transported. Of course, the 

 traders refused to pay this duty, and at once they endeavored 

 to find a route to Rainy lake entirely under Canadian juris- 

 diction. 



In 1800, having succeeded in their efforts, the headquarters 

 of the Northwest Company was changed from Grand Portage 

 to Fort William, Ontario. Sir Alexander McKenzie, after his 

 famous trip over the route of the traders in 1789, described 

 Grand Portage as follows: "The bottom of the bay, which 

 forms an amphitheater, is cleared of wood and enclosed; and 

 on the left corner of it, beneath an hill, three or four hun- 

 dred feet in height, and crowned by others of a still greater 

 altitude, is the fort, picketed in with cedar pallisadoes, and 

 inclosing houses built with wood and covered with shingles. 

 They are calculated for every convenience of trade, as well 



17 



