GRAND PORTAGE The Grand Portage Story

The following abbreviations have been used in the notes:

Chapter 1. The Boundary of East and West

1. Richard W. Ojakangas and Charles L. Matsch, Minnesota's Geology (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), 50-51, 176.

2. Norval Morriseau, Legends of My People, the Great Ojibway, ed. Selwyn Dewdney (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1965), 4-6, 22-32; Daniel Williams Harmon, Sixteen Years in the Indian Country: The Journal of Daniel Williams Harmon, 1800-1816, ed. W. Kaye Lamb (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1957), 230; John Johnston, "An Account of Lake Superior, 1792-1807," in Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, ed. Louis R. Masson (1889-90; reprint, New York: Antiquarian Press, 1960), 2:153; GPLCC, A History of Kitchi Onigaming: Grand Portage and Its People (Cass Lake, Minn.: Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, 1983), 75. A good example of a prayer said by Ojibway travelers on Lake Superior is in John Tanner, A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (1830; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1956), 25.

3. OIA, Report of the Commissioner (Washington, D.C.), 1878, p. 147, 1880, p. 173, 1882, p. 176.

4. On the layout of the campsites, see Alan R. and Nancy L. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument: An Historical Overview and an Inventory of Its Cultural Resources," 1982, vol. 1:164-69, typescript in MHS. The cemetery site is inferred from the discovery of some fur-trade-era human remains when the foundations of the present school were being dug; see "Grand Portage National Monument" 2: structure/feature no. 91. Tanner, Narrative, 22, indicates that both Indians and whites used it. For the numbers present in summer, see Grace Lee Nute, ed., "A British Legal Case and Old Grand Portage," MH 21 (June 1940): 140.

5. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 47; Alexander Henry (the Younger), The Journal of Alexander Henry the Younger, 1 799-1814, ed. Barry M. Gough, PCS, 56 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1988), 1:1; John Macdonell, "The Diary of John Macdonell," in Five Fur Traders of the Northwest, ed. Charles M. Gates (St. Paul: MHS. 1965), 93.

6. George Nelson, "A Winter in the St. Croix Valley, 1802-03," ed. Richard Bardon and Grace Lee Nute, MH 28 (Mar., June, Sept. 1947): 7.

7. Alexander Mackenzie, The Journals and Letters of Sir Alexander Mackenzie, ed. W. Kaye Lamb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 98-99; Macdonell, "Diary," 95; Nelson, "Winter," 12, Alexander Henry, Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776, ed. James Bain (Boston: Little, Brown, 1901), 55. There were two traders named Alexander Henry. This one was later dubbed "the Elder" to distinguish him from his nephew, called "the Younger." Unless otherwise specified, all citations here are to Henry the Elder.

8. Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History, rev. ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1956), 240.

9. The contrast between the camps is extrapolated from later descriptions of Fort William; see Gabriel Franchère, Journal of a Voyage on the North West Coast of North America during the Years 1811, 1812, 1813 and 1814, trans. Wessie Tipping Lamb, ed. W. Kaye Lamb, PCS, 45 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1969), 181; Joseph Delafield, The Unfortified Boundary, ed. Robert McElroy and Thomas Riggs (New York: Privately published, 1943), 401. The quotations refer to Grand Portage; see A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98, and Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 140.

10. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 97; Willard Ferdinand Wentzel, "Letters to the Hon. Roderic [sic] McKenzie, 1807-1824," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 1:71; John J. Bigsby, The Shoe and Canoe; or, Pictures of Travel in the Canadas (London: Chapman & Hall, 1850), 1:147; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 34-35, 154.

11. A. Mackenzie, Journal and Letters, 97-98; Innis, Fur Trade, 227.

12. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 131, 146-48. For a discussion of where Lecuyer's (later Boucher's) fort stood, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:160-63.

13. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 147.

14. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 94, 484, 497; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 19, 20; Macdonell, "Diary," 94, 96; Erwin N. Thompson, Grand Portage: A History of the Sites, People, and Fur Trade (Washington, D.C.: NPS, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation, Division of History, 1969), 93-94, 100. The second wharf was built between 1793, when Macdonell didn't mention it, and 1799, when William McGillivray did. A. and N. Woolworth proposed that it may have been on the island, where a pier was located in the twentieth century; see "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:92-93. At least one of the rowboats was big enough to tow the Otter, as Macdonell mentioned.

15. Macdonell, "Diary," 92.

16. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:218-19; George Thomas Landmann, Adventures and Recollections of Colonel Landmann (London: Colburn & Co., 1852), 1:305-6, 139.

17. Landmann, Adventures and Recollections 1:303-4; Innis, Fur Trade, 214, 216; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 84-85.

18. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 21; Nelson, "Winter," 142.

19. Daniel Williams Harmon, A Journal of Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America (1820; reprint, Toronto: Courier Press, 1911), 15; Macdonell, "Diary," 93; George Heriot, Travels through the Canadas (London: Richard Phillips, 1807), 204.

20. Macdonell, "Diary," 94; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 20.

21. For the cooper, see E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 93. The blacksmith was mentioned by A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 487.

22. Innis, Fur Trade, 210, 227; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 90; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 21-22.

23. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 82.

24. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 320.

25. A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:115-18, William McGillivray mentioned the powder house in 1800; see E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 100-101. Its location is not known.

26. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 22-23; Nelson, "Winter," 8; René Thomas Verchères de Boucherville, "Journal of Thomas Verchères de Boucherville," in War on the Detroit, ed. Milo Milton Quaife, Lakeside Classics, no. 38 (Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1940), 5.

27. Innis, Fur Trade, 243; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 458. For currencies in use at Grand Portage, see Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 125, 131, 146. Traders were inconsistent as to whether the units of Grand Portage currency were called pounds or livres, but their value is consistently given as twelve GPC to one pound Halifax, See Henry (the Younger), Journal, 129n121; Macdonell, "Diary," 93-94; Archibald N. McLeod, "The Diary of Archibald N. McLeod," and Hugh Faries, "The Diary of Hugh Faries"—both in Five Fur Traders, ed. Gates, 132, 240; Roderick McKenzie, "Reminiscences," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 1:61-66.

28. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98, 492.

29. Where they met is pure speculation; at Fort William there was a special council house. See Old Fort William, Thunder Bay, Ontario, "Old Fort William at a Glance: A Thematic Guide to Old Fort William Structures and Their Functions" (n.d., training manual), 28.

30. A good example of the kinds of information exchanged is Alexander Mackenzie's letter of June 4, 1799, in Journals and Letters, 474-83.

31. For examples of lobbying, see A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 452, 454-55.

32. Innis, Fur Trade, 210, 244. This paragraph is based on 1799, when William McGillivray and Alexander Mackenzie were at Grand Portage during the months cited.

33. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 22; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:181-82.

34. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 97. The evidence for pigs is archaeological; see Alan R. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations at the North West Company's Depot, Grand Portage, Minnesota, in 1970-1971 by the Minnesota Historical Society," 1975, p. 276, typescript in MHS. Despite Alexander Mackenzie's pessimistic views on agriculture at Grand Portage, William McGillivray in 1800 instructed the post manager to plow ground and plant crops east of the creek; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 92. It is not known where the barn was located; it may have been outside the depot.

35. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 1:145; Delafield, Unfortified Boundary, 405. The quotations are from J. Johnston, "Account of Lake Superior," 165, and A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 97.

36. Macdonell, "Diary," 97; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 12. The Harmon quotation does not refer specifically to the Grand Portage.

37. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 97. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 139, said that in 1803 the public road ran "from the Beach to the little River" (presumably Pigeon River), or from the forts on the bay "to the North side of the Portage." The witness assumed it was built by the North West Company. When John Tanner crossed the portage about 1795, wagons seem to have been the preferred mode of transportation on "the trader's road"; see his Narrative, 51.

38. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 236; Henry (the Younger), Journal 1:5; Delafield, Unfortified Boundary, 404; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:241 42. For a detailed survey of the sources on the trail, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:47-68. None of the poses or landmarks has yet been identified.

39. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 230, 236; David Thompson, David Thompson's Narrative, 1784-1812, ed. Richard Glover, PCS, no. 40 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1962), 137; "Letter of Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher to General Haldimand, Dated October 4, 1784," in Documents Relating to the North West Company, ed. W. Stewart Wallace, PCS, no. 22 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1934), 73.

40. Heriot, Travels, 205; John McDonald (sometimes spelled MacDonald) of Garth, quoted in Duncan McGillivray, The Journal of Duncan M'Gillivray of the North West Company at Fort George on the Saskatchewan, 1794-5, ed. Arthur S. Morton (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1929), lii, For a detailed summary of sources on Fort Charlotte, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:69-78. Underwater archaeology was done in the Pigeon River opposite Fort Charlotte, but neither of the two fort sites has been excavated; see Robert C. Wheeler et al., Voices from the Rapids: An Underwater Search for Fur Trade Artifacts, 1960-73, Minnesota Historical Archaeology Series, no. 3 (St. Paul: MHS. 1975), 85-93.

41. Innis, Fur Trade, 227-28; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 99; Macdonell, "Diary," 97.

42. D. Thompson, Narrative, 137; Innis, Fur Trade, 228; Henry (the Younger), Journal 1:6-7. For an example of mix-ups on the portages. see Macdonell, "Diary," 98.

43. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98.

44. John McDonald of Garth, "Autobiographical Notes, 1791-1816," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 2:18. Use of a dinner bell is inferred from Alexander Ross, The Fur Hunters of the Far West, ed. Kenneth A. Spaulding, AETS, no. 20 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), 19.

45. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:231; Ross, Fur Hunters, 18-20. There are no surviving descriptions of a meal at Grand Portage. Bigsby described one at Fort William and Ross one at Fort George on the Columbia River, but the system at Grand Portage was probably similar. The phrase on the bourgeois' dress describes Duncan Cameron at his inland post; again, it is reasonable to suppose that dress codes at Grand Portage were similarly formal. See Shirlee A. Smith, "James Sutherland: Inland Trader, 1751-1797," The Beaver, Winter 1975, p. 21.

46. A. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations . . . 1970-1971," p. 158-66, 220-25, 247-48; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98, 487; McDonald of Garth, "Autobiographical Notes," 15.

47. Ross, Fur Hunters, 20; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 25-26, 119.

48. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 22.

49. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 12, refers to the grand lodge. He was the only fur trader who mentioned the Indian village, much less described it. We do not know where it was located. This description is based on Frances Densmore's Chippewa Customs (1929; reprint, St. Paul: MHS Press, Borealis Books, 1979), and on Eastman Johnson's paintings of the village in 1857; see Patricia Condon Johnston, Eastman Johnson's Lake Superior Indians (Afton, Minn.: Johnston Publishing, 1983).

50. On fur traders collecting souvenirs, see R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 36; on topics of conversation, see Henry, Travels and Adventures, 148.

Chapter 2. First Contact

1. William W. Warren, History of the Ojibway People (1885; reprint, St. Paul: MHS Press, Borealis Books, 1984), 83. Warren spelled the latter word, more correctly, as Naudowasewug; given here is the French spelling, which evolved into the name Sioux.

2. Louise Phelps Kellogg, "The French Regime in the Great Lakes Country," MH 12 (Dec. 1931): 349; Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye and His Sons, ed. Lawrence J. Burpee, PCS, no. 16 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1927), 34.

3. Nicolas Perrot, "Memoir on the Manners, Customs, and Religion of the Savages of North America," in The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes, trans. and ed. Emma Helen Blair (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1911), 1:43; Pierre Esprit, sieur de Radisson, "Radisson's Account of His Third Journey, 1658-1660 [1654-1656?]," in Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699, ed. Louise Phelps Kellogg, Original Narratives of Early American History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917), 46-47; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 199; Conrad E. Heidenreich and Arthur J. Ray, The Early Fur Trades: A Study in Cultural Interaction, New Canadian Geography Project, Historical Patterns Series (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976), 13.

4. Innis, Fur Trade, 33.

5. Heidenreich and Ray, Early Fur Trades, 16-17.

6. Paul C. Thistle, Indian-European Trade Relations in the Lower Saskatchewan River Region to 1840, Manitoba Studies in Native History, no. 2 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1986), passim; Innis, Fur Trade, 80, 117; Wentzel, "Letters," 96. For more on the loaded semantics of "laziness," see Mary Black-Rogers, "'Starving' and Survival in the Subarctic Fur Trade: A Case for Contextual Semantics," in Le Castor Fait Tout": Selected Papers of the Fifth North American Fur Trade Conference, 1985, ed. Bruce G. Trigger et al. (Montreal: Lake St. Louis Historical Society, 1987), 633-35.

7. Thistle, Trade Relations, 18-19; Harold Hickerson, The Chippewa and Their Neighbors: A Study in Ethnohistory, rev, and expanded ed. (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1988), 122; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 79, 87.

8. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 269; Bruce M. White, "'Give Us a Little Milk': The Social and Cultural Meanings of Gift Giving in the Lake Superior Fur Trade," MH 48 (Summer 1982): 60-71. Canada is used throughout this volume for the sake of continuity. While under French rule, the territory was known as New France.

9. Innis, Fur Trade, 21; La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 149; White, "Give Us a Little Milk," 60-71, and "A Skilled Game of Exchange: Ojibway Fur Trade Protocol," MH 50 (Summer 1987): 229-40.

10. Perrot, "Memoir," 160-63. Jawendjige was Father Frederic Baraga's spelling in his A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, Explained in English (1878; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1966), part 2, p. 167. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 64, used shah wau-je-gay. For more on this concept, see Black-Rogers, "Starving' and Survival," 638-42.

11. Charles Claude le Roy, sieur Bacqueville de La Potherie, "Adventures of Nicolas Perrot, by La Potherie, 1665-1670," in Early Narratives, ed. Kellogg, 82; Thistle, Trade Relations, 47; Innis, Fur Trade, 32.

12. La Potherie, "Adventures of Nicolas Perrot," 77, 86-87.

13. La Potherie, "Adventures of Nicolas Perrot," 81; Innis, Fur Trade, 18, 172. For an extended discussion of the issue of dependence, see Thistle, Trade Relations. Traders made many of the claims of dependence when reporting on trade rhetoric, where the Indians were attempting to arouse "pity," and in polemical documents, where traders were trying to convince government officials they were performing a public service.

14. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 131-32; "The Pageant of 1671," in Early Narratives, ed. Kellogg, 211-20.

15. Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 37.

16. Innis, Fur Trade, 29, 55.

17. Innis, Fur Trade, 45, 52.

18. Here and below, see Perrot, "Memoir," 173-74; Louise Phelps Kellogg, The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1925), 163; Johanna E. Feest and Christian E. Feest, "Ottawa," in Northeast, ed. Bruce G. Trigger, vol. 15 in Handbook of North American Indians, ed. William C. Sturtevant (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978), 773.

19. This, at least, is the interpretation of ethnohistorian Harold Hickerson, in The Southwestern Chippewa: An Ethnohistorical Study, American Anthropological Association, Memoir 92 (Menasha, Wis., 1962), 72-80, and Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 42-45. See also Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 44, 45, 164; E. S. Rogers, "Southeastern Ojibwa, in Northeast, ed. Trigger, 760-62, 768-70.

20. Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 39-40; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 116-17.

21. Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 13; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, xiii-xiv, 127.

22. "Census of the Indian Tribes," WHC 17 (1906): 247; Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 2, 72; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 83-86. On the Caribou clan, see author's interview with Ellen Bushman Olson, Grand Marais, Nov. 1, 1989, transcript and notes in author's possession.

23. Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 65-66.

24. For the two views of Du Lhut, see "Description of Wisconsin Rivers; Accusations against Du Luth," and "Illicit Fur Trade; Participation Therein of French Soldiers; Complaints against Le Sueur"—both in WHC 16(1902): 107, 174. See also Solon J. Buck, "The Story of the Grand Portage," Minnesota History Bulletin 5 (Feb. 1923): 15; Louise Phelps Kellogg's introduction to Daniel Greysolon, sieur Duluth, "Memoir of Duluth on the Sioux Country, 1678-1682," in Early Narratives, 325-28.

25. Glyndwr Williams, "Highlights in the History of the First Two Hundred Years of the Hudson's Bay Company," The Beaver, Autumn 1970, p. 4-9.

26. Kellogg, "French Regime," 353; Innis, Fur Trade, 49-50; La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 6-7. In Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 99n1, Edward Duffield Neill discussed the copper sample from the "river Nantaouagan," which he thought was the Ontonagon (Michigan); Nantaouagan was, however, the name for the Pigeon.

27. Thistle, Trade Relations, 9; Perrot, "Memoir," 230; Radisson, "Radisson's Account," 35; Innis, Fur Trade, 60-62.

28. Innis, Fur Trade, 39-40, 66-67, 91, 104-9; "Sir Guy Carleton to Lord Shelburne," Mar. 2, 1768, in CPA, Report, 1886, p. clxx. See also Louis-Armand de Loin d'Arce, baron de Lahontan, New Voyages to North-America, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1905), 1:99-101.

29. Innis, Fur Trade, 59, 67, 79, 85, 87, 106-7. On La Noüe, see "Intertribal Affairs; Licenses for Fur Trade; Their Suppression," WHC 16 (1902): 440n1.

30. Innis, Fur Trade, 89-90; La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 8, 44-53.

31. La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 26.

32. Innis, Fur Trade, 91; La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 52, 53. See also DCB 3, s.v. Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye. Pierre."

33. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 131, 436-38.

34. La Vérendrye. Journals and Letters, 100-101. He frequently mentioned 600 warriors gathering at Fort St. Charles, spoke of up to 1,200 going on war parties, and said the largest village contained nine hundred cabins. Since one can assume at least four dependents (women, children, and old people) to each warrior, these figures confirm his assertion that there was a "considerable population" in the area (p. 186).

35. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 85, 136. The post among the Dakota, Fort Beauharnois, had been established in 1727 and later abandoned; La Vérendrye was urging its reinstatement.

36. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 175-77.

37. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 219.

38. Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 69-70.

39. Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 71-72. In 1749 La Vérendrye called the new comers at Rainy Lake "Gens de la Graisse d'Ours," or the Beargrease people. The name continued to be common in the Grand Portage band and is now memorialized in the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 483; Olson interview.

40. "Latest News from Western Posts," WHC 17(1906): 426. The missionary was Father Claude Coquart. Mamongeseda, who became war chieftain of the Lake Superior Ojibway, came from the Grand Portage Caribou clan; perhaps he or his father was the unnamed leader. See Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 218-19.

41. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 25-26, 224, 266, 270, 283, 301; Innis, Fur Trade, 94-95.

42. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 113, 448-50.

43. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 460, 465.

44. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 432, 451.

45. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 486.

46. Innis, Fur Trade, 98, 101, 109; B. C. Payette, comp., Old French Papers (Montreal: Privately printed for Payette Radio, 1966), 298-302.

47. A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 2: structure/feature no. 12; La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 38-39; W. Stewart Wallace, The Pedlars from Quebec and Other Papers on the Nor' Westers (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1954), xii; Williams, "Highlights," 25.

48. La Vérendrye, Journals and Letters, 39; Innis, Fur Trade, 96-97.

49. Jacques le Gardeur, sieur de St. Pierre, "Memoir or Summary Journal," in CPA, Report, 1886, p. clviii-clxix, which dates St. Pierre's trip one year too early. The date given here is from "Peace among Northwestern Tribes," WHC 18 (1908): 133-34.

50. Kellogg, "French Regime," 357; R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 47; "Letter of Benjamin Frobisher to Adam Mabane, Dated Montreal, April 19, 1784," in Documents, ed. Wallace, 70; Wallace, Pedlars, 1. For more on the ship, see "Copper Mines on Lake Superior," WHC 17(1906): 237n2. It was built to serve the posts and copper mines on the south shore but may have gotten to Grand Portage.

51. Wallace, Pedlars, 1-2; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 194-95, 218-19.

Chapter 3. Across the Divide

1. Macdonell, "Diary," 99-100.

2. On Henry's encounter with the Ojibway, here and seven paragraphs below, see his Travels and Adventures, v, xxiv, 3, 11, 34-39, 43-45. The spelling of the chief's name follows Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 199.

3. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 47-48; Innis, Fur Trade, 188; Thompson Maxwell, "Thompson Maxwell's Narrative—1760-1763," WHC 11(1888): 213-15. Rogers' Rangers was a unit formed during the French and Indian War that used Indian skirmishing tactics.

4. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 73-104, 156-58; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 204-9.

5. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 184, 187.

6. Innis, Fur Trade, 173.

7. Paolo Andriani, quoted in François-Alexandre-Frédéric, duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "Tour through Upper Canada," ed. William Renwick Riddell, in Province of Ontario, Bureau of Archives, Thirteenth Report, 1916, p. 113.

8. Jonathan Carver, The Journals of Jonathan Carver and Related Documents, 1766 1770, ed. John Parker (St. Paul: MHS Press, 1976), 12-21, 130-31. See also Carver, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768 (1781; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1956), 106, 131; in this version of his journals, first published in London where the Hudson's Bay Company was powerful, Carver blamed the Indians' criticisms on "the intrigues of the Canadian traders" (p. 111).

9. Here and below, see Carver, Journals, 131, 132, 172, 191; and Travels, 123. The speculation about the palisaded structure is based on John Tanner, who mentioned fortified camps built in dangerous areas, and Henry's 1775 observation that the Ojibway on the border lakes had been subject to much attack from the Dakota. See Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 94; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 238-39.

10. Carver, Journals, 132; Nancy L. Woolworth, "Grand Portage in the Revolutionary War," MH 44 (Summer 1975): 200; Wallace, Pedlars, 4-9; Innis, Fur Trade, 188-90.

11. Innis, Fur Trade, 28; Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 70.

12. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 241-42, describing an incident at Lake of the Woods.

13. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 260. On p. 290-91 he mentioned another such ceremony, which included a "weeping-scene" similar to the one Perrot described on p. 27, above.

14. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 70-71; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 243-44; Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 79; Thistle, Trade Relations, 30.

15. Wallace, Pedlars, 9-10.

16. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 240; Thistle, Trade Relations, 28-29.

17. "Trade in the Lake Superior Country in 1778," MPHC 19 (1892):337; Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 134. Nute believed the "Erskine" who cleared the site of the later North West Company post was probably John Askin of Michilimackinac; A. and N. Woolworth disputed this in "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:166. The description of the posts is based on Verchères, "Journal," 15-16.

18. "Trade," MPHC 19, p. 337-38; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:240; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 230, 235; Wallace, Pedlars, 15; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 70-71.

19. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 71, 74.

20. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 70-71.

21. Wallace, Pedlars, 9, 12, 13; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 253n6, 267; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 21; DCB 4, 5, s.v. "Frobisher, Benjamin," "Frobisher, Joseph"; Harry W. Duckworth, ed., The English River Book: A North West Company Journal and Account Book of 1786, Rupert's Land Record Society Series (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), xiii-xiv.

22. Wallace, Pedlars, 21; Peter Pond, "The Narrative of Peter Pond," in Five Fur Traders, ed. Gates, 27-28; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 75-76. For more on Pond, see Henry R. Wagner, Peter Pond, Fur Trader and Explorer, Yale University Library Western Historical Series, no. 2 (New Haven: The Library, 1955); Harold A. Innis, Peter Pond, Fur Trader and Adventurer (Toronto: Irwin & Gordon, 1930).

23. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 73.

24. DCB 5, s.v. "McTavish, Simon"; Wallace, Pedlars, 27-28, 31-32; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 6-7. Innis, Peter Pond, 67, 75-76, suggested that McTavish was one of Pond's backers; Innis was unconvinced, however, that Pond was a party to the Henry-Frobisher coalition, as Henry implied. A forty-ton sloop was built on Lake Superior for a short-lived mining venture; it was sold in 1774, possibly to John Askin or McTavish, See Henry, Travels and Adventures, 220, 229.

25. Henry, Travels and Adventures, xxi-xxiii, 331, 334-37; DCB 5, s.v. "McTavish, Simon." This profitable year enabled Henry to retire to Montreal, where he became a merchant and, later, John Jacob Astor's mentor in the fur trade business.

26. For the facts, see Innis, Fur Trade, 176, 178-79. The interpretation is entirely the author's.

27. "Trade," MPHC 19, p. 337-39; N. Woolworth, "Revolutionary War," 201-3.

28. John Askin, The John Askin Papers, ed. Milo Milton Quaife (Detroit: Detroit Library Commission, 1928), 1:97-98, 103.

29. N. Woolworth, "Revolutionary War," 203-6.

30. "Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton to Lord Sydney," June 6, 1785, in CPA, Report, 1890, p. 48; "Report from Charles Grant to General Haldimand on the Fur Trade, April 24, 1780," in Documents, ed. Wallace, 62-66; Innis, Fur Trade, 181, 187; Askin, Papers 1:76; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 28-29.

31. "Report from Grant," in Documents, ed. Wallace, 66; Duncan McGillivray, "Some Account of the Trade Carried on by the North West Company," in CPA, Report, 1928, p. 60.

32. Here and two paragraphs below, see Innis, Fur Trade, 215, 219-20, 242; "Benjamin Frobisher to Hon. Henry Hamilton," May 2, 1785, in CPA, Report, 1890, p. 55-56; La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, "Tour," 113; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 81-84.

33. Innis, Fur Trade, 220, 225; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 84; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 211; Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 73.

34. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 73.

35. Innis, Fur Trade, 230, 246; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 81.

36. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 74; Inglis, quoted in Innis, Fur Trade, 248.

37. Washington Irving, Astoria; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains, ed. Edgeley W. Todd, AETS, no. 44 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 11; Ross, Fur Hunters, 7.

38. Innis, Fur Trade, 214; Henry, Travels and Adventures, 25; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 436.

39. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 73-74; Innis, Fur Trade, 214, 232; McGillivray, "Some Account," 69.

40. Quoted in R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 33.

41. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 12, 27, 51, 65; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 453.

42. Here and below, see Harmon, Sixteen Years, 17, 37-38, 45, 46, 67.

43. Here and below, see Harmon, Sixteen Years, 43, 55, 74.

44. Here and below, see Harmon, Sixteen Years, 50, 56, 62-63, 98, 108, 125, 186, 194.

45. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 105, 109; Wentzel, "Letters," 108. Other good examples of this process are Charles MacKenzie, "The Mississouri Indians: A Narrative of Four Trading Expeditions to the Mississouri, 1804-1805-1806," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 1:318; and George Nelson, "Winter." An excellent description of the trader acculturation process is in Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 386. Alexander Mackenzie spoke negatively of it in Journals and Letters, 65-66, though he claimed it only happened to Frenchmen, The "poverty and obscurity" statement was applied to David Thompson, another good example of acculturation; see Wallace, Pedlars, 68.

Chapter 4. The Hurly-Burly of Business

1. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 74.

2. Mitchell Oman, quoted by David Thompson, Narrative, 236.

3. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 261-62; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 111. Though Mackenzie was ostensibly the author of the quotation, it was probably written by David Thompson, who traveled through northern Minnesota in 1798.

4. The author found no Indian accounts of the 1781-82 epidemic; this description is generally based on accounts of later ones where mortality was similar—for instance, the 1837 epidemic among the Hidatsa. On domestic violence, see, for example, Harmon, Sixteen Years, 61; Henry (the Younger), Journal, 136, 138-39, 158.

5. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 260; Thistle, Trade Relations, 62-63; Innis, Fur Trade, 199.

6. Thistle, Trade Relations, 33, 74, 77; McGillivray, "Some Account," 62.

7. McGillivray, "Some Account," 60-61; Frobisher to Mabane, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 67-68.

8. Innis, Fur Trade, 243, 250.

9. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 77, 80; Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, The North West Company (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1957), 151-52; Innis, Fur Trade, 258; Irving, Astoria, 14; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 1:123,

10. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 83.

11. Here and below, see Innis, Fur Trade, 241; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 433; Ross, Fur Hunters, 9-11; Wentzel, "Letters," 93, 96.

12. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 83-84, 99; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 11-12; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 157-59. For an example of a guide countermanding a bourgeois, see R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 9.

13. "Memorial of Montreal Merchants Respecting Trade," MPHC 24 (1895): 405-6; Peter Grant, "The Sauteux Indians about 1804," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 2:314; Irving, Astoria, 44

14. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 424; Verchères, "Journal," 4; Johann Georg Kohl, Kitchi-Gami: Life among the Lake Superior Ojibway, trans. Lascelles Wraxall (1860; reprint, St. Paul: MHS Press, Borealis Books, 1985), 225; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 55, 67.

15. Nelson, "Winter," 232. Nelson was working for the XY Company, which operated much the same way as the North West Company.

16. Innis, Fur Trade, 239, 241; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 495.

17. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 83; Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 138.

18. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 123, 125, 142.

19. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 123-24; Campbell, North West Company, 155.

20. Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 140; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 98; Innis, Fur Trade, 242; McGillivray, Journal, 6-8. The passage from Mackenzie has two messages. Explicitly, he was denying any discontent. But in stressing how outnumbered and help less the masters were, he betrayed their insecurity. This was clearly one autocrat to whom the idea of rebellion had occurred.

21. Frobishers to Haldimand, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 74; A. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations . . . 1970-1971," p. 69; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 71, 137-40; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 496; Thomas Douglas, earl of Selkirk, Lord Selkirk's Diary, 1803-1804, ed. Patrick C. T. White, PCS, no. 35 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1958), 214-15.

22. E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 53, 91-92; "Secretary [Winthrop] Sargent to the Secretary of State," Sept. 30, 1796, in U.S. Dept. of State, The Territorial Papers of tine United States (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1934), 2:577; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 492. The Quebec government had no legal right to grant land to the North West Company; Grand Portage was known to be south of the border by this date. The "point" referred to in William McGillivray's letter is thought to be a sand point just east of the mouth of Grand Portage Creek; today, only a few boulders remain of it. On the "premier's scaffold," see note 29, below.

23. Innis, Fur Trade, 182-83, 220-22; Grace Lee Nute, Lake Superior, American Lakes Series (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1944), 118; Macdonell, "Diary," 89, 94; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 19; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 475, 497; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 100-101, 106.

24. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 11, 66; Wallace, Pedlars, 52; "General Return of the Departments and Posts" and "General List of Partners, Clerks & Interpreters"—both in CPA, Report, 1892, p. 142, 1939, p. 53-56; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 49, 101. For the blacksmith and joiner, see A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 485, 487; the wintering spots are mentioned on p. 496. For more on Fraser (not the explorer but a Scottish relative of Simon McTavish), McKenzie, and Munro, see Documents, ed. Wallace, 445, 478, 488.

25. Macdonnel, "Diary," 97; John McDonald of Garth, quoted in McGillivray, Journal, lii.

26. Here and below, see Thistle, Trade Relations, 16, 31, 46, 56. Harmon's diary is also replete with evidence of traders' helplessness as hunters. On post returns and food at Grand Portage, see E. Thompson, Grand Portage., 93, 101; A. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations . . . 1970-1971," p. 275-81. The post journals from Fort William frequently mention scarcity and food purchased from the Indians, and it is unlikely Grand Portage was much different.

27. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 12-13. In all, the Ojibway on the border lakes sold 1,200 to 1,500 bushels of wild rice to the North West Company each year; see Harmon, Sixteen Years, 92.

28. Tanner, Narrative, 61; "Memorial," MPHC 24:407; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 491. Heriot, Travels, 205, stated that a canoe yard at Grand Portage produced seventy canoes a year; for a refutation, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:137-47.

29. MHS, The Aborigines of Minnesota: A Report, collated by Newton H. Winchell (St. Paul: MHS. 1911), 583; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 84. On Nectam, see Carver, Journals, 132; Macdonell, "Diary," 103; and A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 106, who asserted that "Nectam" was a title rather than a name. William H. Keating said the scaffold was located at Fort Charlotte—evidently confusing that post with the "grand depot of the North-west Company" on Lake Superior; see Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, &c. (London: George B. Whittaker, 1825), 2:155-56. It may have been "the premier's scaffold" mentioned as a landmark by William McGillivray in 1799. See above, p. 71.

30. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 25, 193; Tanner, Narrative, 23-24, 26. Harmon's quotation about the Iroquois referred to an area farther west but was doubtless true of the northern Minnesota region as well.

31. "Memorial," in MPHC 24:404, 408.

32. William E. Lass, Minnesota's Boundary with Canada: Its Evolution since 1783, MHS Public Affairs Center Publications (St. Paul: MHS Press, 1980), 12-18.

33. Wallace, ed., Documents, 9-10, 72; "Memorial," MPHC 24:406.

34. Carolyn Gilman, "Grand Portage Ojibway Indians Give British Medals to Historical Society," MH 47 (Spring 1980): 27-28; "Memorial," MPHC 24:407-8.

35. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 77-78; Wallace, ed., Documents, 8.

36. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 9-10; Innis, Peter Pond, 106. The Frobishers used Pond's map in yet another effort to get a monopoly out of the British government; see "Memorial of Peter Pond," in CPA, Report, 1890, p. 52-54.

37. Innis, Fur Trade, 253. Roderick spelled his last name "McKenzie," reflecting variants that were common in other Scottish names as well.

38. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 2-3, 16, 24, 78, 454.

39. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe, 1:115 (quoting David Thompson); R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 11.

40. Here and two paragraphs below, see R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 10-12; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 48-49.

41. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 17-18. This passage is sometimes quoted as having happened at Grand Portage; the context makes it clear, however, that Roderick was speaking of Ile-a-la-Crosse, a post on a lake threaded by the Churchill River.

42. Wallace, Pedlars, 25; R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 18-19.

43. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 78-79, 430.

44. Campbell, North West Company, 59; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 432. The Mackenzie in the first quotation was probably Roderick, who was getting his information from Alexander.

45. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 200, 441-43.

46. Campbell, North West Company, 67.

47. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 450-52; Campbell, North West Company, 80.

48. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 453-54.

49. "Letter of Simon McTavish to Joseph Frobisher, Dated April, 1787," in Documents, ed. Wallace, 75-76.

50. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 82-83; Innis, Fur Trade, 258; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe, 1:123-24.

51. Wallace, Pedlars, 31-33; Campbell, North West Company, 117.

52. E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 76; Innis, Fur Trade, 257-58.

53. Elaine Allan Mitchell, "The North West Company Agreement of 1795," CHR 36 (June 1955): 131-35.

54. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 23-25.

55. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 415-16, 503.

56. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 279-80, 290-94; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 110.

57. This is the interpretation in Elaine Allan Mitchell, "New Evidence on the Mackenzie-McTavish Break," CHR 41 (Mar. 1960): 41-44. For the drinking matches, see Landmann, Adventures and Recollections 1:233-38, 295-96.

58. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 48; Duncan McGillivray to Æneas Cameron, May 13, 1800, and McTavish to Cameron, Sept. 2, 1799—both in Mitchell, "New Evidence," 45-46. The second quotation comes from Louis R. Masson's introduction to Les Bourgeois, as translated by Wallace in Pedlars, 38. Masson may have gotten the story from Roderick, his first wife's grandfather; see also The Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography, ed. W. Stewart Wallace, 4th ed. (Toronto: Macmillan Co. of Canada, 1978), 565.

59. William McGillivray to Æneas Cameron, May 8, 1800, in Mitchell, "New Evidence," 46.

60. Fraser to McTavish, Jan. 18, 1800, in Wallace, Pedlars, 40-41.

61. McTavish to the Wintering Partners, Apr. 20, 1800, quoted in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 1:75-76; Colin Robertson, quoted in W. Stewart Wallace, "The Nor'Westers Invade the Bay," The Beaver, Mar. 1947, p. 33.

62. Wallace, Pedlars, 56-58; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 25; Simon McTavish to Roderick McKenzie, June 22, 1799, in R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 47-48. See also R. Harvey Fleming, "The Origin of 'Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Company,'" CHR 9 (June 1928): 137-55.

63. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 21.

64. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 36.

65. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 495, 499.

66. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 32, 495-96, 507; Nelson, "Winter," 142; Verchères, "Journal," 10-11; E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 105. Verchères has caused immense confusion because he said the XY fort "had been built by the Northwest Company," but from the context it is clear he meant the New North West Company—or XY. The fort he described could not have been the old North West Company's. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 20-21, stated that the original XY buildings were two hundred rods from the North West Company fort.

67. E. Thompson, Grand Portage, 111; Verchères, "Journal," 6-10. On the XY Company buildings at Pigeon River, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:72-78; Wheeler et al., Voices from the Rapids, 39.

68. Campbell, North West Company, 133; Frangois Victor Malhiot, "A Wisconsin Fur-Trader's Journal, 1804-05," WHC 19 (1910): 210.

69. Gordon Charles Davidson, The North West Company (1918; reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1967), 77.

70. Nelson, "Winter," 143.

71. Nelson, "Winter," 144.

72. Nelson, "Winter," 156; McDonald of Garth, "Autobiographical Notes," 25-26; Innis, Fur Trade, 273n35; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 70; Thistle, Trade Relations, 72. For more beatings and murder threats, see Henry (the Younger), Journal, 150.

73. Thistle, Trade Relations, 67-72; Henry (the Younger), Journal, 156, 158.

74. Tanner, Narrative, 51-52.

75. White, "Give Us a Little Milk," 67, and "Skilled Game," 234-36.

76. Innis, Fur Trade, 235.

77. McGillivray, "Some Account," 62-63.

78. McGillivray, "Some Account," 61, 62. For traders' attitudes and comments on the effect of alcohol, see Harmon, Sixteen Years, 44, 73, 77; Henry (the Younger), Journal, 139.

79. Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 102.

80. Wallace, Pedlars, 30; Campbell, North West Company, 132, 142; "Rivalry in Northwest Trade," in WHC 19 (1910): 290; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 32, 513.

81. Wallace, ed., Documents, 111, 116-18, 172, 194. The first person expelled for drunkenness was Jean Baptiste Cadotte, whom Mackenzie had championed; see Documents, 183-84.

82. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 39; Campbell, North West Company, 143. Alexander Henry (the Elder) said that the XY Company's debts amounted to £70,000; see "Union of Northwest Companies," WHC 19 (1910): 310.

83. Frobisher to Mabane, in Documents, ed. Wallace, 69; Peter Drummond to James Green, Sept. 9, 1797, in Peter Russell, The Correspondence of the Honourable Peter Russell, ed. E. A. Cruikshank and A. E. Hunter (Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1932), 1:276; William McGillivray to John Hale, Sept. 4, 1824, and testimonies of William Mackay and John McGillivray—all in U.S. Congress, House, Boundary between the United States and Great Britain, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 1838, H. Ex. Doc. 451 (Serial 331), 123, 126-27, 131; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:240-41.

84. D. Thompson, Narrative, xiv; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 1:113-14.

85. D. Thompson, Narrative, xxxv, lxxviii-lxxxiii, 130-31, 219; "General List," in CPA, Report, 1939, p. 56.

86. R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 46.

87. Harmon, Sixteen Years, 92; Innis, Fur Trade, 229; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:241; R. McKenzie, "Reminiscences," 47.

88. Nelson, "Winter," 14; McGillivray, "Some Account," 70; Franchère, Journal, 182; Selkirk, Diary, 214; Henry (the Younger), Journal, 144. A good summary of the sources on the move appears in A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:153-59.

89. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 293.

90. J[ames] Ferguson to Daniel Webster, July 25, 1842, in U.S. Congress, Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress, 27th Cong., 3d sess., 1842, S. Doc. 1 (Serial 413), 105; A. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations ... 1970-1971," p. 36, 47; Buck, "Story of the Grand Portage," 23-24; McDonald of Garth, "Autobiographical Notes," 34-35; David Thompson, diary, July 22, 1822, photostat in David Thompson Papers, MHS.

Chapter 5. Roots of Community

1. The early population reports, although they agree surprisingly well, are probably underestimates; they were made by fur traders, and not all families participated in the trade. In 1809 about 150 people traded at Fort William; by 1829 that number had risen to 195, of whom 44 were from south of the border. By 1832 an American census reported 50 at Grand Portage—12 men, 11 women, and 27 children. See McGillivray, "Some Account," 66; Elizabeth Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 1821-1892: A Collection of Documents, PCS, Ontario Series, no. 9 (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1973), 62; Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Schoolcraft's Expedition to Lake Itasca: The Discovery of the Source of the Mississippi, ed. Philip P. Mason (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), 159. Between 1874 and 1920, OIA tribal rolls list between 236 and 362 people, the numbers slowly growing as the years passed; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:200-201, The names of the chiefs are from the card index to the Fort William Journals, Old Fort William library, Thunder Bay, Ontario. These journals are dispersed among the National Archives of Canada, the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, and the Manitoba Provincial Archives; the card index, compiled by researchers for the reconstruction of Old Fort William, is the source for all material cited here.

2. Carver, Journals, 131; Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 34, 62.

3. Warren Upham, Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance (1920; reprint, St. Paul: MHS, 1969), 146; J. William Trygg, "A Study of the Tourist and Recreational Resources of the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, Minnesota," Jan. 11, 1963, p. 20, typescript in GPNM; John Fritzen, Historic Sites and Place Names of Minnesota's North Shore (Duluth: St. Louis County Historical Society, 1974), 25, 29.

4. Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 82; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 93, 95; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 211; GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 39; Densmore. Chippewa Customs, 124-25, 153-54; Grace Lee Nute, "The American Fur Company's Fishing Enterprises on Lake Superior," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 12 (Mar. 1926): 490-91.

5. Henry, Travels and Adventures, 55, 56-57, 66-67; GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 19; Densmore, Chippewa Customs, 126.

6. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:202-3; Trygg, Tourist and Recreational Resources," 11 12, exhibit A.

7. GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 18.

8. Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 108-14, and Southwestern Chippewa, 14; Macdonell, "Diary," 77; A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 96; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:207n.

9. Hickerson, Southwestern Chippewa, 4, 46-47; Thistle, Trade Relations, 40. Quotations are from François Clairambault d'Aigremont, in Edmund Jefferson Danziger, Jr., The Chippewas of Lake Superior, Civilization of the American Indian Series, vol. 148 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 23, and from William Henry, in Henry, Travels and Adventures, viii.

10. Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 34, 37, 64-65; Nancy L. Woolworth, "The Grand Portage Mission: 1731-1965," MH 39 (Winter 1965): 305; "Report of the Lake Superior District Outfit," 1829, and FWJ, Aug. 5, 1828, July 24, 1829—excerpts from both in FWJ card index.

11. Peau de Chat is frequently mentioned in the Fort William Journals, often in close proximity to Espagnol. Petickquishaung, Espagnol's stepson, married Peau de Chat's daughter; FWJ, July 3, 1824, July 29, 1826, Mar. 21, 1827. On Grand Coquin, see FWJ, Feb. 10, 1824; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:265. On Joseph Peau de Chat, see Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 14. The missionary was Father Nicholas Frémiot.

12. Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:232, 246; Francis Xavier Pierz, baptismal records, 1838-39, p. 22, photostat in Francis Pierz Papers, MHS; U.S. Laws, Statutes, etc., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, comp. and ed. by Charles J. Kappler (Washington, D.C., 1904), 2:568, 651. The age listed for Joseph "Saganachens" in Pierz's 1839 records could be either fifty-nine or thirty-nine. The latter matches Bigsby's description better.

13. Richard E. Morse, "The Chippewas of Lake Superior," WHC 3 (1857; reprint, 1904): 354-55.

14. Thistle, Trade. Relations, 40; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 135, 316; Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, xlv-xlvi, 17.

15. Tanner, Narrative, 144-47.

16. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 322-23; Tanner, Narrative, 147.

17. "John Kinzie to Thomas Forsyth," July 7, 1812, in U.S. Dept. of State, Territorial Papers 16(1948): 249; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 369-71; Danziger, Chippewas, 66. Ojibway activity in the War of 1812 was doubtless what prompted Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan Territory, to urge the United States in 1815 to found a post at Grand Portage for the "salutary effects" it would have "upon the minds of the Indians"; see "Wisconsin Posts Recommended," WHC 19 (1910): 376-79.

18. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 324; Tanner, Narrative, 147; Gilman, "Grand Portage Ojibway Indians," 30.

19. Lass, Minnesota's Boundary, 1-2, 69-71; Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, xxv; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:266.

20. Innis, Fur Trade, 187; Nute, ed., "Legal Case," 120-21; N. Woolworth, "Revolutionary War," 208; Buck, "Story of the Grand Portage," 24n22; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:234.

21. A. Mackenzie, Journals and Letters, 84; Gabriel Richard to Bishop [John] Carroll, June 1799, in J. A. Girardin, "Life and Times of Rev. Gabriel Richard," MPHC 1(1877): 484; "Minutes of the Meetings of the North West Company at Grand Portage and Fort William, 1801-1807," in Documents, ed. Wallace, 210-11; Harmon, Sixteen Years, 5-6; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 195.

22. Duncan Cameron, "The Nipigon Country, 1804," in Les Bourgeois, ed. Masson, 2:296-97; Innis, Fur Trade, 259-62.

23. Robert MacRobb deposition, Dec. 17, 1818, in Great Britain, Colonial Office, Papers Relating to the Red River Settlement (London, 1819), 67-68; Keating, Narrative 2:138; Henry Youle Hind, Narrative of the Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition of 1857 and of the Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858 (1860; reprint, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), 1:14, 74-76; James H. Baker, "History of Transportation in Minnesota," Minnesota Historical Collections 9 (1901): 9; DCB 5, s.v. "Douglas, Thomas"; Old Fort William, "Old Fort William at a Glance," 13-14.

24. Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 33.

25. Thistle, Trade Relations, 82, 86; Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 385; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 1:126.

26. Thistle, Trade Relations, 75, 81; FWJ, June 27, 30, July 15, 21, 1827, Jan. 1, 1828, quotations from Jan. 21, 1831, Dec. 20, 1823.

27. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 383; Crooks to Robert Stuart, Apr. 8, 1822, in International Joint Commission, Final Report ... on the Lake of the Woods Reference (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1917), 127; J. Ward Ruckman, "Ramsay Crooks and the Fur Trade of the Northwest," MH 7 (Mar. 1926): 22-23.

28. Chapman, letter book, 1823-24, p. 4, 6, 7, 15-16, 19, in Henry Hastings Sibley Papers, MHS; FWJ, Dec. 15, 17, 1823, June 6, 1824, and R. Mackenzie, "Report for Fort William District 1828/29" (excerpt in FWJ card index).

29. "Mr. [Henry Rowe] Schoolcraft's Report in Relation to the Fur Trade," Oct. 24, 1831, in U.S. Congress, Senate, Message from the President of the United States in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate Concerning the Fur Trade, and Inland Trade to Mexico, 22d Cong., 1st sess., 1832, S. Doc. 90 (Serial 213), 43, 46; Alvin C. Gluek, Jr., Minnesota and the Manifest Destiny of the Canadian Northwest: A Study in Canadian-American Relations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 43. The American Fur Company's posts at Grand Portage have never been researched or found. In 1829 an Indian reported that the Americans were building at Roche de Bout, halfway between Grand Portage and Fond du Lac, but they were back at Grand Portage by the early 1830s. See FWJ, July 29, 1826, Apr. 30, 1827, Oct. 4, 1829; Schoolcraft, Expedition, 191.

30. Nute, "Fishing Enterprises," 485-89, 491-93; Ruckman, "Ramsay Crooks," 25.

31. Here and below, see Nute, "Fishing Enterprises," 489-91, 493; Gabriel Franchère, "Remarks made on a visit from Lapointe to the Fishing Stations of Grand Portage, Isle Royal and Ance Quiwinan," Aug. 1839, p. 1-3, typescript transcription in Gabriel Franchère Papers, MHS. Douglass Houghton visited Grand Portage in 1840. His field notes locate the American Fur Company's fishing station east of Grand Portage Creek. Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 43; Bernard C. Peters (Northern Michigan University) to Alan Woolworth (MHS), July 26, 1990, Jan. 8, 1991.

32. Franchère, "Remarks," 2; Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, xxvi, 9-10,43; FWJ, Aug. 22, 1837.

33. Nute, "Fishing Enterprises," 495-501.

34. N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage Mission," 303-4.

35. Paul Buffalo, quoted in Timothy G. Roufs, "Nature and the Concept of Power among Mississippi and Lake Superior Ojibwa: Reflections of Paul Buffalo," June 1978, p. 6-8, 10-11, typescript in GPNM.

36. George Nelson, " The Orders of the Dreamed": George Nelson on Cree and Northern Ojibwa Religion and Myth, 1823, ed. Jennifer S. H. Brown and Robert Brightman, Manitoba Studies in Native History, no. 3 (St. Paul: MHS Press; Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1988), 138-46; GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 63; Roofs, "Nature and the Concept of Power," 15. The first source refers to the Cree but reflects Ojibway beliefs as well. See also Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976).

37. W. J. Hoffman, "The Mide'wiwin or 'Grand Medicine Society' of the Ojibwa," in U.S. Bureau of Ethnology, Seventh Annual Report (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1891), 156-59; Hickerson, Chippewa and Their Neighbors, 52-56; Nancy Way Lienke, "Ethnomethodology in a Chippewa Community Using Above-Ground Artifacts in a Free Association Technique," n.d., p. 47, typescript in GPNM.

38. Here and six paragraphs below, see N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage Mission," 304-10; Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 73. Espagnlol's wife was baptized Josette Otakakwan; Pierz's baptismal records, p. 22, list her as being sixty, not seventy; Pierz Papers, MHS.

Chapter 6. The Boundary of Cultures

1. Warren, History of the Ojibway People, 117, 118.

2. Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 11, 16, 18; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:189.

3. Morse, "Chippewas of Lake Superior," 355; U.S. Laws, Indian Affairs 2:648-51.

4. A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:190; U.S. Laws, Indian Affairs 2:649. For the acreage see, for example, OIA, Report, 1880, p. 173; on the satellite settlements, see Willis H. Raff, Pioneers in the Wilderness: Minnesota's Cook County, Grand Marais and the Gunflint in the Nineteenth Century (Grand Marais, Minn.: Cook County Historical Society, 1981), 52.

5. A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:191, 2: structure/feature no. 54; Alexander McDougall, The Autobiography of Captain Alexander McDougall ([Duluth?]: A. Miller McDougall & Lewis G. Castle, 1932), 35. On Elliott and Drouillard, see Raff, Pioneers, 7; U.S. Dept. of State, Register of Officers and Agents ... in the Service of the United States ... 1859 (Washington, D.C.: William A. Harris, 1859), 90; U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Register of Officers and Agents ... 1861 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1862), 84; OIA, Report, 1858, p. 47-48.

6. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Register... 1861, p. 84; OIA, Report, 1857, p. 32-34, 1858, p. 48.

7. OIA, Report, 1856, p. 32-33, 1858, p. 47, 1860, p. 52; MHS, Aborigines, 657; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:190-92. The last contains a useful summary of the OIA reports for 1855-1909; see p. 190-99.

8. Isaac L. Mahan, "Grand Portage Bands, Northern Minn.," and "Lake Superior Agency," in American Missionary (American Missionary Association) 19, 20 (Nov. 1875, Nov. 1876): 251-52, 250-52; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:193.

9. Raff, Pioneeers, 5, 6, 14; Hind, Narrative 1:74-75. The Hudson's Bay Company complained that McCullough's traders made expeditions across the border to Lake Nipigon and Pays Plat; see Arthur, ed., Thunder Bay District, 103.

10. Here and below, see Mary L. Emmons to Solon J. Buck, Nov. 2, 1927, and Newton J. Bray to Grace Lee Nute, Jan. 31, 1931—both letters in Minnesota History Information File, MHS Archives, MHS; Paul LaPlante, "Statement of Paul LaPlante made at Grand Portage," Apr. 20, 1931, typescript in MHS.

11. Raff, Pioneers, 4, 131, 135, 158, 191; Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe 2:192n, 193-94; Trygg, "Tourist and Recreational Resources," 10-11; Silver Mountain Mining and Milling Company, Minneapolis, Prospectus; Property Located in Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada ([Minneapolis, 1892?]), 13, 17. The copper mine on Susie Island was a one-season enterprise of the Falconer family, backed by some Iowa investors; see Dewey Albinson, "A Grand Portage Story and Some Other Tales from the North Country," 1963, p. 90, typescript in MHS; Duluth News-Tribune, Mar. 14, 1939, p. 1.

12. Here and two paragraphs below, see Elinor Barr, "Lumbering in the Pigeon River Watershed," Papers and Records (Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society) 4 (1976): 3-9; Raff, Pioneers, 51, 105-7, 117; R. L. Polk & Co.'s Duluth Directory, 1900, p. 91.

13. U.S. Congress. House, Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, 51st Cong., 1st sess., 1890, H. Ex. Doc. 247 (Serial 2747), 25, 178-79; Jay P. Kinney, "Memorandum regarding requested extension of time on Corcoran & Johnson timber contracts, Grand Portage Reservation, Minnesota," Mar. 31, 1926, in Jay P. Kinney Papers, MHS. Kinney believed that the reservation had been logged before 1900, then again starting in 1907; however, the timber had not been sold by 1898. See A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:197-98. In U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Indian Affairs, Survey of Conditions of the Indians in the United States, part 39 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1942), 22498, it is stated that logging on tribal, allotted, and ceded lands started as early as 1904.

14. Raff, Pioneeers, 42; U.S. Congress, House, Chippewa Indians, 23; Nancy L. Woolworth, "Miss Densmore Meets the Ojibwe: Frances Densmore's Ethnomusicology Studies among the Grand Portage Ojibwe in 1905," Minnesota Archaeologist 38 (Aug. 1979): 109; James Hull, Red Shadows in the Mist ([Grand Portage, Minn]: Privately published, 1969), 14; Cook County News-Herald (Grand Marais), June 20, 1935, p. 1, 4; Polk & Co.'s Duluth Directory, 1900, p. 132.

15. OIA, Report, 1882, p. 176; Raff, Pioneers, 52, 57-58; Olson interview. By 1896 about half the band lived at Grand Marais; see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:197.

16. Here and below, see Raff, Pioneers, 292-303.

17. Raff, Pioneers, 9, 14-15, 46, 47, 65-66.

18. U.S. Congress, House, Chippewa Indians, 23, 59-60, 178-79; GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 53-54; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:197.

19. MHS, Aborigines, 697.

20. Here and below, see N. Woolworth, "Miss Densmore," 107-8, 110; Charles Hofmann, comp. and ed., Frances Densmore and American Indian Music: A Memorial Volume, Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, vol. 23 (New York: The Foundation, 1968), 25-26. On Caribou and Shingibis, see "Census Roll of the Grand Portage Chippeway Indians," Oct. 24, 1889, typescript transcription by Nancy Way Lienke in GPNM; Cook County News-Herald, Aug. 18, 1921, p. 5; Raff, Pioneers, 56.

21. The name Maymushkowaush is mentioned in the 1889 census as well as in the Fort William Journals and Pierz's 1838-39 baptismal records. Densmore's field notes associate the name Louis Gabiosa with one of the British medals. I have been unable to identify him.

22. Here and below, see N. Woolworth, "Miss Densmore," 107, 110-13; Hofmann, comp. and ed., Frances Densmore, 27-28.

23. Here and below, see Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 2, 4, 5, 6.

24. Here and below, see Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 7-9, 39.

25. Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 8-9.

26. A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:197-98; Olson interview; Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 11-12, 35; Gilman, "Grand Portage Ojibway Indians," 31.

27. Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 11; Lienke, "Ethnomethodology," 58, 59; Olson interview; Trygg, "Tourist and Recreational Resources," 18-19.

28. Here and below, see George M. Schwartz, A Guidebook to Minnesota Trunk Highway No. 1, Minnesota Geological Survey, Bulletin no. 20 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1925), 87-88; Lloyd Hendrickson interview with Gordon Lindemann, Grand Portage, Apr. 16, 1980, transcript in Cook County Historical Society File, Grand Marais Public Library, Grand Marais, Minn.; Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 66; Cook County News-Herald, June 20, 1935, p. 1, 4, July 12, 1951, p. 1; A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:219. The Isle Royale trips were later taken over by Roy Oberg and the Sivertson family.

29. Danziger, Chippewas, 131-33; David Beaulieu, "A Place Among Nations: Experiences of Indian People," in Minnesota in a Century of Change: Thee State and Its People Since 1900, ed. Clifford E. Clark, Jr. (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1989), 415.

30. GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 59, 66; U.S. Laws, Indian Affairs (Washington, D.C., 1979), 7:1421-22; Elizabeth Ebbott, Indians in Minnesota, 4th ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press and League of Women Voters of Minnesota, 1985), 25.

31. GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 61-62; U.S. Congress, Senate, Survey, 22473-74; Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 38.

32. Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 39.

33. Here and below, see R. Newell Searle, Saving Quetico-Superior: A Land Set Apart (St. Paul: MHS Press, 1977), 138-39; Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 41-45, 64, 95, 112, 114; U.S. Congress, Senate, Survey, 22411-12, 22422, 22461.

34. Here and below, see U.S. Congress, Senate, Survey, 22473-74, 22496-505; Les Miller, "North Shore Highway Completed," Minnesota Highways (Minn. Dept. of High ways), Oct. 1966, p. 7.

35. Here and below, see Buck, "Story of the Grand Portage," 27.

36. Schwartz, Guidebook, 88; Albinson, "Grand Portage Story," 19-22.

37. Ron Cockrell, "Grand Portage National Monument, Minnesota: An Administrative History" (Omaha: NPS, Midwest Regional Office, Oct. 1983), 12.

38. Cockrell, "Grand Portage National Monument," 14-15; Calvin W. Gower, "The CCC Indian Division: Aid for Depressed Americans, 1933-1942," MH 43 (Spring 1972): 7, 11-12.

39. Here and below, see Ralph D. Brown, "Archaeological Investigation of the Northwest Company's Post, Grand Portage, Minnesota, 1936," Indians at Work (OIA), May 1937, p. 38-43; Willoughby M. Babcock, "Grand Portage Rises Again," The Beaver, Sept. 1941, p. 55. Brown never wrote a report on his excavations. In 1963 Alan R. Woolworth assembled all the remaining records in his typescript report "Archeological Excavations at the North West Company's Fur Trade Depot, Grand Portage, Minnesota, in 1936-1937 by the Minnesota Historical Society"; see p. 50, 53, 57, 111-13, 132-71.

40. Here and below, see Cockrell, "Grand Portage National Monument," 15-16, 28-30, 33.

41. Cockrell, "Grand Portage National Monument," 35-37.

42. Here and two paragraphs below, see A. and N. Woolworth, "Grand Portage National Monument" 1:230-55; A. Woolworth, "Archaeological Excavations . . . 1970-1971," p. 53-54, 56-58, 90-91, 276-82.

43. Wheeler et al., Voices from the Rapids, 39-44, 85-93.

44. Hull, Red Shadows, 57.

45. Cook County News-Herald, July 17, 1969, p. 1; Cockrell, "Grand Portage National Monument," 47-51, 60.

46. Here and below, see Duluth News-Tribune, May 1, 1969, p. 1; GPLCC, Kitchi Onigaming, 70-72; Minneapolis Tribune, May 1, 1975, p. 1B-2B. The Hilton hotel chain was the band's first partner on the lodge project but backed out. On forest management, see U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Minneapolis Area Office, "Grand Portage Forest Resources Management Plan and Environmental Assessment," Aug. 1986.

47. Lienke, "Ethnomethodology," 55-56. The interviews were done in 1962, but the same attitudes are expressed today.

48. Hull, Red Shadows, 5.