Grand Portage National Monument
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MNSearchers
N 47° 57.770 W 089° 41.098
16T E 299576 N 5315657
Travel into the past to discover the present. Explore the Heritage Center with stories of the Anishinabe or Ojibwe people of Grand Portage and the North West Company of the North American fur trade.
Waymark Code: WM6ZPE
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 08/10/2009
Views: 10
Follow pathways into a distant time. Take in the sights and smells of a bustling depot reconstructed over its original footprint. Listen for the echo of the drum over Grand Portage Bay.
As early as 2,000 years ago, Indian Nations probably used Gichi-onigaming, or “the Great Carrying Place”, to travel from summer homes on Lake Superior to winter hunting grounds in the interior of Minnesota and Ontario. In 1729 Cree guide Auchagah drew a map for some of the first French fur traders showing them how to reach the "western sea" of Lake Winnipeg. In time, Grand Portage became the gateway into rich northern fur bearing country connecting remote interior outposts to lucrative international markets.
The Grand Portage trail itself is an 8 1/2 mile trail connecting Grand Portage with Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. Voyageurs from the interior of Canada would carry their furs by canoe to Fort Charlotte, and portage the bundles of fur to Grand Portage. There they would meet their counterparts from Montreal, and exchange the furs for trade goods and supplies. Each canoe "brigade" would then return to its starting place.[1]
Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall (Ontario) painted by Frances Anne Hopkins in 1869
In mid-July 1802, partners of the most successful fur trade company in North America, the North West Company, met in their Great Hall at Grand Portage, Minnesota and voted to move their summer headquarters from the protected shores of Lake Superior’s Grand Portage Bay 50 miles (80 km) north to the mouth of the Kaministiquia River. Almost from the time the Anglo-Scot Nor’Westers had organized at Grand Portage in the mid 1780s an emerging United States wanted them out. The July vote would mean that 18 buildings constructed from native squared spruce, pine and birch and over 2,000 cedar pickets surrounding them would be torn down, transported north in company schooners and used in constructing the new Fort William far from U.S. soil.
Reopened in 1951 as Grand Portage National Historic Site, it was designated a National Monument in 1958, and the portage trail itself is a Minnesota State Historic Site.[2] The monument's 710 acres (2.9 km2) lie entirely within the boundaries of Grand Portage Ojibwe Indian Reservation. The reconstructed depot celebrates fur trade and Ojibwe lifeways. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
State/States the Park is located...: Minnesota
Park Designation: Monument/Memorial
Times the Visitors Center (or Park) is Open....: From: 9:00 AM To: 5:00 PM
Months the Visitors Center/Park is open...: From: 05/28/2010 To: 10/12/2010
Website From the National Parks Service Page of this Waymark...: [Web Link]
SECONDARY website.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Portage_National_Monument
Are pictures included?: yes
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