History of Minnesota's Lake Superior
Exploration and Fur Trade (1650-1840)
The pre-contact history of the Lake Superior is poorly understood in Minnesota due to a scarcity of known archaeological sites. No prehistoric archaeological sites have been excavated and only three prehistoric sites are recorded along Lake Superior in the Minnesota archaeological site files. The early history of the region is thus largely based on adjacent areas of the Superior shore in Canada and Wisconsin.
At the time of contact between Native Americans and Europeans, the Cree may have controlled most of the western Superior shore with Dakota present in the south and Ojibwe in the north. By 1700, the Ojibwe controlled much of the region. French explorers entered the Lake Superior country in the mid-1600s. French fur posts were soon established in the far north where Grand Portage became a major trading center. Anglo-American traders re-used the French sites along Grand Portage and also established posts near Duluth.
The appearance of French explorers on Lake Superior predates the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Only a decade after the initial French settlement at Quebec in 1608, the French reached the waters of Lake Superior. By 1650, the French were engaged in mapping the Midwest. They reached the upper Mississippi River in the mid-1670s, and claimed that vast territory for King Louis XIV.
Etienne Brule is credited with the European discovery of Lake Superior before 1620. He may have traveled on the Lake as far west as Isle Royale. Raymbault visited the St. Marys Rapids in 164l, learning about the Dakota (Sioux) who lived beyond its shores. A few years later, Groseilliers and Radisson ventured further west. They wintered near Chequamegon Bay in 1654. They visited the "Head of the Lakes" (present-day Duluth area) that year and again in 1660. They were believed to have been the first Europeans to travel on Lake Superior. Groseilliers and Radisson were accompanied on their return voyages by flotillas of Indian canoes packed with furs.
Fr. Rene Menard visited western Lake Superior in 1661. Another missionary, Fr. Claude Allouez, explored the northern and western shores of Lake Superior in the mid-1660s. He contributed to a 1670 Jesuit map that accurately showed details for the first time. Louis Jolliet discovered the important water route from Green Bay to the Mississippi River in 1673. Daniel Greysolon, Sieur DuLuth ventured to the St. Louis River in 1679. He then journeyed overland to Mille Lacs and the Mississippi River. He not only explored much of the area between Kaministiquia (present-day Thunder Bay, Ontario) and the Mississippi, but made alliances with several Native American tribes and opened trade for the French.
These Frenchmen and a handful of others sought to extend Louis XIV's claims to New France. They traveled across the wilderness principally by water in small undecked vessels such as canoes or batteaux. Although many of their routes are known to modern historians, no remains of their frail craft have been found.
Several of the French explorers were aware of the ancient Pigeon River portage and its strategic importance. DuLuth established a post at nearby Kaministiquia in 1683, though no post was erected on the Pigeon River itself until decades later. Pierre de La Verendrye and his sons built Fort St. Pierre at Rainy Lake on the portage in 1732, and Fort St. Charles at Lake of the Woods a year later. These were the first white settlements in present day Minnesota. The first post on the bay at Grand Portage was erected soon afterward. The significance of Grand Portage to the later fur trade is well known. Its importance in the exploratory period suggests a strong potential for remnants of the boats of that era to be found in or near Grand Portage Bay.
By 1720, French speculators and exploring parties had ventured all over the Midwest. By this time they had achieved a solid familiarity with the geography of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and Mississippi River basins, and most of the connections and portages between the great watersheds. They had traveled all the way from the Atlantic to the prairies, and from the Canadian Shield to the Gulf of Mexico. After 1720, the French stabilized their trade with the natives, though their exploration slowed. Some further exploration occurred toward the Rocky Mountains and the Saskatchewan country in the 1730s. During the latter part of the 1820's, international conflicts diverted French attention and financial resources.
The British moved forward in exploration after 1763. Alexander Mackenzie pushed north and west from Grand Portage to the rim of the Arctic Ocean in 1789, venturing across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in 1792. David Thompson explored parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and eventually (in 1809) crossed the Rocky Mountains and followed the Columbia River to the sea. Zebulon Pike, Lewis Cass, Stephen Long, and Henry Schoolcraft mapped out Minnesota's geography in United States government employ between 1805 and 1820. By 1820, the exploratory period had ended. Most mapping thereafter dealt with boundary clarification and embellishing details of the territorial landscape.
Several factors brought the fur trade to the Great Lakes in the early decades of the 16th century. The fashion for beaver hats generated a demand for pelts. French trade for beaver in the lower St. Lawrence River had led to the depletion of the animals in that region by the late 1630s. As a result, the French searched further and further west for new resources and new routes, making alliances with the Native Americans along the way to trap and deliver their furs.
By the mid-17th century, Brule, Nicolet, Groseilliers, Radisson, DuLuth, and other Frenchmen had mapped out the major watersheds of the middle west, won the trust of important native tribes, and established a handful of posts in the wilderness. Native tribes around the Great Lakes quickly recognized the value of European trade goods such as hatchets, axes, kettles, knives, and firearms, and were eager to trade with the Frenchmen. After 1675, competition increased with the English, the Dutch, and the Iroquois to the south, while the new and powerful Hudson's Bay Company had a foothold in the north. The French, therefore, continued to move westward.
DuLuth negotiated an agreement with the Dakota at Izatys (Mille Lacs) in 1679, which opened much of the upper Mississippi region to the French. By 1700, they had established a handful of posts from Lake Peoria on the Illinois River to Kaministiquia and Lake Nipigon. Their couriers controlled the region south and west of Lake Superior. The forts at Kaministiquia and Lake Nipigon attracted trade from the far north, competing with the Hudson's Bay Company.
LaVerendrye arrived on Lake Superior in 1730 to develop routes and expand native trade deeper into the west. He erected Fort St. Pierre at Rainy Lake in 1731 and Fort St. Charles at Lake of the Woods in 1732. He reached into the Mandan country of the Missouri watershed in 1738. LaVerendrye brought the Grand Portage trade up to a level that was competitive with that of the Mississippi-Wisconsin-Fox River route. Twenty years later, the French established posts in the Lake Winnipeg district to prevent the tribes in the northwest from trading with the English. With Lake Winnepeg under its control, French trade routes extended all the way from Montreal to Lake Athabasca and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the French lost all their territory east of the Mississippi River. Though technically the land was controlled by the British for just 20 years, the fur trade remained in British hands until after the War of 1812. The business centered on Grand Portage, Michilimackinac, and La Pointe. The trade was managed by the Hudson's Bay Company and its newly-organized rival, the North West Company. The North West Company was composed of a loosely-knit group of partners and was head-quartered at Montreal.
From 1768 until 1804, the North West Company brought hundreds of traders and voyageurs to their headquarters at Grand Portage to exchange west-bound trade goods for east-bound pelts. Their July rendezvous was the once-a-year meeting with the "northwesters" before the voyageurs made their way back down the Lakes to Montreal. Grand Portage was a natural meeting place. It was located as far west as the canoes could travel in one season and still get back to Montreal before the Lakes froze up. It was also the terminus for the original route into the heart of the west, and was situated on a great bay where large numbers of canoes could find shelter. In the 1790s, the fort at Grand Portage had 16 buildings, including dwellings, a great mess hall, a counting-house, warehouses, a canoe-shed, and a long dock.
The fur trade on the Lake was traditionally carried out in birch bark canoes and wooden batteaux of varying descriptions. Twenty-four-foot North canoes were employed for the western traffic because they were light, easily portaged, and sufficiently maneuverable for the frequent rapids. Thirty-six-foot Montreal canoes were used on the open Lakes. After about 1700, they were supplanted by pine-plank batteaux. Double-ended York boats were used on the major rivers of western Canada after about 1780. Small sailing craft, known as Mackinaw boats, were also in use by this time. After 1770, a number of merchant sailing ships were built on Lake Superior to expedite transportation between Sault Ste. Marie and the western end of the Lake. Most of these were schooners ranging in size from 40 to 85 tons. Most were built at Point aux Pins, just above the Sault. Between 1778 and 1811, at least ten such craft were built for the various partners of the North West Company. Two or three were built for the Hudson's Bay Company, and at least five for the American Fur Company, between 1817 and 1840. Fewer than three or four vessels were in service on Lake Superior at any one time up until the 1820's.
After 1792, the North West Company established several posts on Minnesota rivers and lakes, and in areas to the west and northwest, for trading with the Ojibwe, the Dakota, and other native tribes. The first of these posts was located at the present site of Superior, Wisconsin. Known as Fort St. Louis, it became the head-quarters for North West Company's new Fond du Lac Department. It had stockaded walls, two houses of 40 feet each, a shed of 60 feet, a large warehouse, and a canoe yard. During this time there were more than 40 British fur posts within the present boundaries of Minnesota. Key northern Minnesota posts were located at Vermillion, Sandy, Leech, Cass, Red, and Rainy Lakes and, of course, Grand Portage.
As a result of Jay's Treaty in 1794, the North West Company relocated its headquarters from Grand Portage to Kaministiquia. The company's Fond du Lac Department headquarters was moved from Superior to Leech Lake in 1805. The Company continued to operate other posts all over Minnesota and upper Wisconsin for another ten years, despite titular United States control of the territory.
The American Fur Company was organized by Austrian-born John Jacob Astor in 1808. The Company began trading at the Head of the Lakes in 1809. In 1817, it erected a new headquarters at present-day Fond du Lac, on the St. Louis River. There, portages connected Lake Superior with Lake Vermillion to the north, and with the Mississippi to the south. Active trade was carried on until the failure of the fur trade in the 1840s. By then, the trade had shifted westward. When John Aitkin took charge of the "Northern Outfit," he relocated the headquarters to Sandy Lake.
In 1834, the American Fur Company undertook commercial fishing operations on Lake Superior to bolster their sagging profits. Fishing stations were established at Fond du Lac and Grand Portage, both of which had been virtually abandoned. Nearby, La Pointe (Wisconsin) was the center of the Company's fishing business. Four to five thousand barrels of fish were shipped annually from the three sites during their heyday in the mid-1830s. The 111-ton schooner John Jacob Astor was built for the firm in 1835 to transport fish and supplies. Three similar craft were added in the next few years as the volume of the trade grew.
The fur industry began to decline in the 1830s, due to depletion of fur-bearing animals and declining markets for furs in Europe. The Panic of 1837 led to the ultimate failure of the American Fur Company. The firm had begun diversification some years earlier, and managed to stave off dissolution until 1842. The North West Company merged with the larger Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. That firm survived by concentrating all of its attention on Canada's northernmost territories, where the trade was most lucrative and transportation cheapest. The Company still thrives today.
The old posts were abandoned one by one. The North West Company's old Fort St. Louis was abandoned by 1815. The fort at Grand Portage was used as a fishing station in the 1830s, but it reverted to a quiet Ojibwe village by 1842. Fond du Lac was operated by the Missouri Fur Company between 1842 and ca. 1847. Then it, too, was left idle. Kaministiquia's post survived until the amalgamation of the North West and Hudson's Bay companies. It was abandoned thereafter in 1821 in favor of transport by way of Hudson's Bay.
In Minnesota, the Native American fur trade collapsed by the 1840s. Subsequent commerce in furs has been sustained largely by individual trappers operating in the Mississippi headwaters. During the 1850s, the industry centered around Mendota.
Associated Water Craft
As far as is known, no aboriginal or European exploratory water craft have been found in Minnesota's Lake Superior waters, although the existence of such craft cannot be discounted. The sites of principal fur posts on Lake Superior merit systematic survey due to the high probability of material culture being present along the shoreline and in submerged environments. North West and American Fur Company sites on Superior Bay, the Fond du Lac, Encampment Island, Grand Marais, and Grand Portage, all have promise, particularly the Fond du Lac and Grand Portage locations, because of the long occupation and the intensity of activity there. In addition to tools, trade goods, and other portable artifacts, there is a possibility that remnants of batteaux or mackinaw boats and the tackle (such as anchors) from the larger schooners exist. One vessel from the fur trade period is believed to have wrecked in Minnesota waters. The schooner Madeline was reportedly crushed by drifting ice in the mouth of the Knife River in April, 1838.
Exploration and Fur Trade (1650-1840)
The pre-contact history of the Lake Superior is poorly understood in Minnesota due to a scarcity of known archaeological sites. No prehistoric archaeological sites have been excavated and only three prehistoric sites are recorded along Lake Superior in the Minnesota archaeological site files. The early history of the region is thus largely based on adjacent areas of the Superior shore in Canada and Wisconsin.
At the time of contact between Native Americans and Europeans, the Cree may have controlled most of the western Superior shore with Dakota present in the south and Ojibwe in the north. By 1700, the Ojibwe controlled much of the region. French explorers entered the Lake Superior country in the mid-1600s. French fur posts were soon established in the far north where Grand Portage became a major trading center. Anglo-American traders re-used the French sites along Grand Portage and also established posts near Duluth.
The appearance of French explorers on Lake Superior predates the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Only a decade after the initial French settlement at Quebec in 1608, the French reached the waters of Lake Superior. By 1650, the French were engaged in mapping the Midwest. They reached the upper Mississippi River in the mid-1670s, and claimed that vast territory for King Louis XIV.
Etienne Brule is credited with the European discovery of Lake Superior before 1620. He may have traveled on the Lake as far west as Isle Royale. Raymbault visited the St. Marys Rapids in 164l, learning about the Dakota (Sioux) who lived beyond its shores. A few years later, Groseilliers and Radisson ventured further west. They wintered near Chequamegon Bay in 1654. They visited the "Head of the Lakes" (present-day Duluth area) that year and again in 1660. They were believed to have been the first Europeans to travel on Lake Superior. Groseilliers and Radisson were accompanied on their return voyages by flotillas of Indian canoes packed with furs.
Fr. Rene Menard visited western Lake Superior in 1661. Another missionary, Fr. Claude Allouez, explored the northern and western shores of Lake Superior in the mid-1660s. He contributed to a 1670 Jesuit map that accurately showed details for the first time. Louis Jolliet discovered the important water route from Green Bay to the Mississippi River in 1673. Daniel Greysolon, Sieur DuLuth ventured to the St. Louis River in 1679. He then journeyed overland to Mille Lacs and the Mississippi River. He not only explored much of the area between Kaministiquia (present-day Thunder Bay, Ontario) and the Mississippi, but made alliances with several Native American tribes and opened trade for the French.
These Frenchmen and a handful of others sought to extend Louis XIV's claims to New France. They traveled across the wilderness principally by water in small undecked vessels such as canoes or batteaux. Although many of their routes are known to modern historians, no remains of their frail craft have been found.
Several of the French explorers were aware of the ancient Pigeon River portage and its strategic importance. DuLuth established a post at nearby Kaministiquia in 1683, though no post was erected on the Pigeon River itself until decades later. Pierre de La Verendrye and his sons built Fort St. Pierre at Rainy Lake on the portage in 1732, and Fort St. Charles at Lake of the Woods a year later. These were the first white settlements in present day Minnesota. The first post on the bay at Grand Portage was erected soon afterward. The significance of Grand Portage to the later fur trade is well known. Its importance in the exploratory period suggests a strong potential for remnants of the boats of that era to be found in or near Grand Portage Bay.
By 1720, French speculators and exploring parties had ventured all over the Midwest. By this time they had achieved a solid familiarity with the geography of the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence and Mississippi River basins, and most of the connections and portages between the great watersheds. They had traveled all the way from the Atlantic to the prairies, and from the Canadian Shield to the Gulf of Mexico. After 1720, the French stabilized their trade with the natives, though their exploration slowed. Some further exploration occurred toward the Rocky Mountains and the Saskatchewan country in the 1730s. During the latter part of the 1820's, international conflicts diverted French attention and financial resources.
The British moved forward in exploration after 1763. Alexander Mackenzie pushed north and west from Grand Portage to the rim of the Arctic Ocean in 1789, venturing across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in 1792. David Thompson explored parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and eventually (in 1809) crossed the Rocky Mountains and followed the Columbia River to the sea. Zebulon Pike, Lewis Cass, Stephen Long, and Henry Schoolcraft mapped out Minnesota's geography in United States government employ between 1805 and 1820. By 1820, the exploratory period had ended. Most mapping thereafter dealt with boundary clarification and embellishing details of the territorial landscape.
Several factors brought the fur trade to the Great Lakes in the early decades of the 16th century. The fashion for beaver hats generated a demand for pelts. French trade for beaver in the lower St. Lawrence River had led to the depletion of the animals in that region by the late 1630s. As a result, the French searched further and further west for new resources and new routes, making alliances with the Native Americans along the way to trap and deliver their furs.
By the mid-17th century, Brule, Nicolet, Groseilliers, Radisson, DuLuth, and other Frenchmen had mapped out the major watersheds of the middle west, won the trust of important native tribes, and established a handful of posts in the wilderness. Native tribes around the Great Lakes quickly recognized the value of European trade goods such as hatchets, axes, kettles, knives, and firearms, and were eager to trade with the Frenchmen. After 1675, competition increased with the English, the Dutch, and the Iroquois to the south, while the new and powerful Hudson's Bay Company had a foothold in the north. The French, therefore, continued to move westward.
DuLuth negotiated an agreement with the Dakota at Izatys (Mille Lacs) in 1679, which opened much of the upper Mississippi region to the French. By 1700, they had established a handful of posts from Lake Peoria on the Illinois River to Kaministiquia and Lake Nipigon. Their couriers controlled the region south and west of Lake Superior. The forts at Kaministiquia and Lake Nipigon attracted trade from the far north, competing with the Hudson's Bay Company.
LaVerendrye arrived on Lake Superior in 1730 to develop routes and expand native trade deeper into the west. He erected Fort St. Pierre at Rainy Lake in 1731 and Fort St. Charles at Lake of the Woods in 1732. He reached into the Mandan country of the Missouri watershed in 1738. LaVerendrye brought the Grand Portage trade up to a level that was competitive with that of the Mississippi-Wisconsin-Fox River route. Twenty years later, the French established posts in the Lake Winnipeg district to prevent the tribes in the northwest from trading with the English. With Lake Winnepeg under its control, French trade routes extended all the way from Montreal to Lake Athabasca and the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
In the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the French lost all their territory east of the Mississippi River. Though technically the land was controlled by the British for just 20 years, the fur trade remained in British hands until after the War of 1812. The business centered on Grand Portage, Michilimackinac, and La Pointe. The trade was managed by the Hudson's Bay Company and its newly-organized rival, the North West Company. The North West Company was composed of a loosely-knit group of partners and was head-quartered at Montreal.
From 1768 until 1804, the North West Company brought hundreds of traders and voyageurs to their headquarters at Grand Portage to exchange west-bound trade goods for east-bound pelts. Their July rendezvous was the once-a-year meeting with the "northwesters" before the voyageurs made their way back down the Lakes to Montreal. Grand Portage was a natural meeting place. It was located as far west as the canoes could travel in one season and still get back to Montreal before the Lakes froze up. It was also the terminus for the original route into the heart of the west, and was situated on a great bay where large numbers of canoes could find shelter. In the 1790s, the fort at Grand Portage had 16 buildings, including dwellings, a great mess hall, a counting-house, warehouses, a canoe-shed, and a long dock.
The fur trade on the Lake was traditionally carried out in birch bark canoes and wooden batteaux of varying descriptions. Twenty-four-foot North canoes were employed for the western traffic because they were light, easily portaged, and sufficiently maneuverable for the frequent rapids. Thirty-six-foot Montreal canoes were used on the open Lakes. After about 1700, they were supplanted by pine-plank batteaux. Double-ended York boats were used on the major rivers of western Canada after about 1780. Small sailing craft, known as Mackinaw boats, were also in use by this time. After 1770, a number of merchant sailing ships were built on Lake Superior to expedite transportation between Sault Ste. Marie and the western end of the Lake. Most of these were schooners ranging in size from 40 to 85 tons. Most were built at Point aux Pins, just above the Sault. Between 1778 and 1811, at least ten such craft were built for the various partners of the North West Company. Two or three were built for the Hudson's Bay Company, and at least five for the American Fur Company, between 1817 and 1840. Fewer than three or four vessels were in service on Lake Superior at any one time up until the 1820's.
After 1792, the North West Company established several posts on Minnesota rivers and lakes, and in areas to the west and northwest, for trading with the Ojibwe, the Dakota, and other native tribes. The first of these posts was located at the present site of Superior, Wisconsin. Known as Fort St. Louis, it became the head-quarters for North West Company's new Fond du Lac Department. It had stockaded walls, two houses of 40 feet each, a shed of 60 feet, a large warehouse, and a canoe yard. During this time there were more than 40 British fur posts within the present boundaries of Minnesota. Key northern Minnesota posts were located at Vermillion, Sandy, Leech, Cass, Red, and Rainy Lakes and, of course, Grand Portage.
As a result of Jay's Treaty in 1794, the North West Company relocated its headquarters from Grand Portage to Kaministiquia. The company's Fond du Lac Department headquarters was moved from Superior to Leech Lake in 1805. The Company continued to operate other posts all over Minnesota and upper Wisconsin for another ten years, despite titular United States control of the territory.
The American Fur Company was organized by Austrian-born John Jacob Astor in 1808. The Company began trading at the Head of the Lakes in 1809. In 1817, it erected a new headquarters at present-day Fond du Lac, on the St. Louis River. There, portages connected Lake Superior with Lake Vermillion to the north, and with the Mississippi to the south. Active trade was carried on until the failure of the fur trade in the 1840s. By then, the trade had shifted westward. When John Aitkin took charge of the "Northern Outfit," he relocated the headquarters to Sandy Lake.
In 1834, the American Fur Company undertook commercial fishing operations on Lake Superior to bolster their sagging profits. Fishing stations were established at Fond du Lac and Grand Portage, both of which had been virtually abandoned. Nearby, La Pointe (Wisconsin) was the center of the Company's fishing business. Four to five thousand barrels of fish were shipped annually from the three sites during their heyday in the mid-1830s. The 111-ton schooner John Jacob Astor was built for the firm in 1835 to transport fish and supplies. Three similar craft were added in the next few years as the volume of the trade grew.
The fur industry began to decline in the 1830s, due to depletion of fur-bearing animals and declining markets for furs in Europe. The Panic of 1837 led to the ultimate failure of the American Fur Company. The firm had begun diversification some years earlier, and managed to stave off dissolution until 1842. The North West Company merged with the larger Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. That firm survived by concentrating all of its attention on Canada's northernmost territories, where the trade was most lucrative and transportation cheapest. The Company still thrives today.
The old posts were abandoned one by one. The North West Company's old Fort St. Louis was abandoned by 1815. The fort at Grand Portage was used as a fishing station in the 1830s, but it reverted to a quiet Ojibwe village by 1842. Fond du Lac was operated by the Missouri Fur Company between 1842 and ca. 1847. Then it, too, was left idle. Kaministiquia's post survived until the amalgamation of the North West and Hudson's Bay companies. It was abandoned thereafter in 1821 in favor of transport by way of Hudson's Bay.
In Minnesota, the Native American fur trade collapsed by the 1840s. Subsequent commerce in furs has been sustained largely by individual trappers operating in the Mississippi headwaters. During the 1850s, the industry centered around Mendota.
Associated Water Craft
As far as is known, no aboriginal or European exploratory water craft have been found in Minnesota's Lake Superior waters, although the existence of such craft cannot be discounted. The sites of principal fur posts on Lake Superior merit systematic survey due to the high probability of material culture being present along the shoreline and in submerged environments. North West and American Fur Company sites on Superior Bay, the Fond du Lac, Encampment Island, Grand Marais, and Grand Portage, all have promise, particularly the Fond du Lac and Grand Portage locations, because of the long occupation and the intensity of activity there. In addition to tools, trade goods, and other portable artifacts, there is a possibility that remnants of batteaux or mackinaw boats and the tackle (such as anchors) from the larger schooners exist. One vessel from the fur trade period is believed to have wrecked in Minnesota waters. The schooner Madeline was reportedly crushed by drifting ice in the mouth of the Knife River in April, 1838.
