Grand Portage

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GRAND PORTAGE

GRAND PORTAGE received its name from voyageurs, who found the nine miles between Lake Superior and the Pigeon River the longest portage in their regular canoe route from Montreal to the Rocky Mountains. About 1780 the name came to mean the British North West Company post at the lake end of the portage. At the height of its prosperity, about 1795, Grand Portage had a stockade, sixteen buildings, a pier, a canoe yard, a garden, domestic animals, and schooner connection with Sault Ste. Marie. In 1804 the transfer of activities from Grand Portage to Fort William, Ontario, occurred in accordance with Jay's Treaty of 1794, thus ending Grand Portage's heyday.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lass, William E. Minnesota: A History. New York: Norton, 1998.

Grace LeeNute/a. e.

See alsoNorth West Company ; Voyageurs .

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