The Fur Trade Revisited: Selected Papers of the Sixth North American Fur Trade Conference, Mackinac Island, Michigan, 1991

When Rivers Were Roads: Deciphering the Role of Canoe Portages in the Western Lake Superior Fur Trade

When Rivers Were Roads: Deciphering the Role of Canoe Portages in the Western Lake Superior Fur Trade Douglas A. Birk When Europeans entered the northern lake-forest regions of North America, they found an intricate network of canoe trails in use by indigenous populations. Carrying places, like land bridges, bypassed obstacles and linked waterways, contributing to the efficiency of what was truly a remarkable inland water transportation system. In regions south and west of the Great Lakes, most of the portage-based canoe trails have now been abandoned in favor of other modes and lanes of transportation. Today archaeologists look upon the old canoe portages, routes, and route systems as past expressions of human adaptation and ingenuity and as vital parts of a natural world that shaped and channeled human behavior. Like historical artifacts, these features and everything about them, from their locations to their names, can be studied to broaden our understanding of former peoples, cultures, and times. This paper, written from an archaeological perspective, describes some preliminary results of an Institute for Minnesota Archaeology (IMA) study of early water transportation in the area of Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. The study is part of a broader, ongoing IMA research program focused on the investigation of early human geography and cultural landscapes in the western Great Lakes. A goal of the IMA program is to define and explicate human-land and human-water relationships in that region in the period before and during initial white settlement and the development of modern transportation systems. Like most archaeology associated with the North American fur trade, this study has involved a strategy to frame questions, a methodology to derive answers, and the conjoining of written, cartographic, oral, and material evidence to provide a usable database. Anyone familiar with fur-trade history is aware of the prominent role that geography played in shaping initial European intrusions in North America. Researchers have linked the development and success of the fur trade in the western Great Lakes to everything from climate, transportation, logistics, tribal wisdom, and tribal areas, to the territorial range of animals like the Castor canadensis (the beaver) or plants like Betula papyriJera (paper birch) (e.g., Ross 1973: ix). Among the variables perhaps most commonly mentioned in this 359 DOUGLAS A. BIRK regard are topography, water resources, and drainage patterns (e.g., Innis 1973; Morse 1962; 1969; Wheeler, et al. 1975). There is little doubt that, in addition to human preferences and capabilities, land- and water-scapes played a major role in influencing the mode, rate, and direction of early westward travel. European colonies set in eastern coastal areas were enveloped by dense forests and devoid of practical roads. Land travel, especially over great distances, was an arduous task. Often the only reasonable means of penetrating inland areas was to ascend rivers (Guillet 1966: 3). With the notable exception of the Hudson River drainage, the existence of long rivers that might facilitate western ingress from the American seaboard settlements was precluded by the Appalachian Highlands (Innis 1973: 10). Mountainous regions like Pennsylvania were dissected by wild, rapid streams which proved a barrier to river traffic (Wallace 1987: 2). In contrast, the French and British found portals for exploration and commerce in the Laurentian outlet and Hudson Bay. Each portal served as a natural extension of the Atlantic Ocean and formed a direct water communication to the ports of Europe, the British Isles, and the Caribbean. The destiny of Canada was thus early linked to water transportation and westward expansion (Morse 1969: 117). To counter those who assert that Canada is a nation "despite her geography," determinists like Harold Innis have argued that "Canada is a nation because of it" (Winks 1973: xv). Indeed, over half of the fresh-water surface in the world is contained in Canada and the contiguous areas of the United States encompassing the Great Lakes. Arrangement and drainage of these surface waters has formed a vast natural system of inland waterways. Countless lakes and streams, ranging from unnamed "frog ponds" or creeks to celebrated features like Lake Superior or the Mackenzie River, widely interconnect to accommodate the passage of portable, low-displacement watercraft like birch bark canoes (Morse 1969: 27). The peculiarities of climate and geography provided a fairly predictable supply of annual precipitation needed to replenish the system. Enhancing the utility of these waterways is the nature of the landscape in the continental interior. Despite the far-flung parameters of what might be called the fur trade "canoe...