Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader, and explorer. In the 1730s, he and his four sons explored the area west of Lake Superior and established trading posts there. They were part of a process that added Western Canada to the original New France territory that was centred along the Saint Lawrence basin.
The Pigeon River forms part of the Canada–United States border between the state of Minnesota and the province of Ontario, west of Lake Superior. In pre-industrial times, the river was a waterway of great importance for transportation and the fur trade.
Fort William was a city in Ontario, Canada, located on the Kaministiquia River, at its entrance to Lake Superior. It amalgamated with Port Arthur and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Since then, it has been the largest city in Northwestern Ontario. The city's Latin motto was A posse ad esse, featured on its coat of arms designed in 1900 by town officials, "On one side of the shield stands an Indian dressed in the paint and feathers of the early days; on the other side is a French voyageur; the cent[re] contains a grain elevator, a steamship and a locomotive, while the beaver surmounts the whole."
The Kaministiquia River is a river which flows into western Lake Superior at the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Kaministiquia is an Ojibwe word meaning "where a stream flows in island" due to two large islands at the mouth of the river. The delta has three branches or outlets, reflected on early North American maps in French as "les trois rivières" : the southernmost is known as the Mission River, the central branch as the McKellar River, and the northernmost branch as the Kaministiquia. Residents of the region commonly refer to the river as the Kam River.
Fort William Historical Park is a Canadian historical site located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, that contains a reconstruction of the Fort William fur trade post as it existed in 1816. It officially opened on July 3, 1973.
The Winnipeg River is a Canadian river that flows roughly northwest from Lake of the Woods in the province of Ontario to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. This river is 235 kilometres (146 mi) long from the Norman Dam in Kenora to its mouth at Lake Winnipeg. Its watershed is 106,500 square kilometres (41,100 sq mi) in area, mainly in Canada. About 29,000 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi) of the watershed is in northern Minnesota, United States.
Grand Portage National Monument is a United States National Monument located on the north shore of Lake Superior in northeastern Minnesota that preserves a vital center of fur trade activity and Anishinaabeg Ojibwe heritage. The area became one of the British Empire's four main fur trading centers in North America, along with Fort Niagara, Fort Detroit, and Michilimackinac.
Fort La Reine was built in 1738 and is one of the forts of the western expansion directed by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye, first military commander in the west of what is now known as Canada. Located on the Assiniboine River where present day Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, stands, the fort served as a fur trading post. It was also the base of operations for much exploration north and west. From Fort La Reine, explorers made their way to Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan River.
Fort Saint Pierre on Rainy Lake was the first French fort built west of Lake Superior. It was the first of eight forts built during the elder Vérendrye's expansion of trade and exploration westward from the Great Lakes.
Height of Land Portage is a portage along the historic Boundary Waters route between Canada and the United States. Located at the border of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, the path is a relatively easy crossing of the Laurentian Divide separating the Hudson Bay and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watersheds.
Jacques de Noyon was a French Canadian explorer and coureur des bois. He is the first known European to visit the Boundary Waters region west of Lake Superior.
The Pays d'en Haut was a territory of New France covering the regions of North America located west of Montreal. The vast territory included most of the Great Lakes region, expanding west and south over time into the North American continent as the French had explored. The Pays d'en Haut was established in 1610 and depended on the colony of Canada until 1763, when the Treaty of Paris ended New France, and both were ceded to the British as the Province of Quebec.
Bas de la Rivière is a geographical area on both sides of the Winnipeg River at and near the mouth where it empties into Lake Winnipeg. It had a storied historical period in the opening of the west and the subsequent fur trade and settlement.
This article covers the water based Canadian canoe routes used by early explorers of Canada with special emphasis on the fur trade.
Voyageurs were 18th- and 19th-century French Canadians who transported furs by canoe at the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places and times where that transportation was over long distances. The voyageurs' strength and endurance was regarded as legendary. They were celebrated in folklore and music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted.
Fort Lac la Pluie was a fur trade depot established by the North West Company sometime between 1775 and 1787. It was located on a high bank on the west side of modern Fort Frances, Ontario across from International Falls, Minnesota on the Rainy River downstream (west) of some rapids where the river flows out of Rainy Lake. Upstream at the outlet of the lake was the old French post of Fort Saint Pierre (1731-1758). The site is marked by a granite boulder. Morton describes some runnable rapids, Fort Saint Pierre and a fall that had to be portaged before reaching the fort, which implies that the river level may have changed.
Pedlar is a term used in Canadian history to refer to English-speaking independent fur traders from Montreal who competed with the Hudson's Bay Company in western Canada from about 1770 to 1803. After 1779 they were mostly absorbed by the North West Company. The name was first used by the Hudson's Bay Company to refer to French coureurs des bois, who travelled inland to trade with the Indians in their villages and camps. This was in contrast to the HBC policy of building posts on Hudson Bay, to where the Indians would bring furs to trade with them.
Fur trading on the Assiniboine River and the general area west of Lake Winnipeg, in what is now Manitoba, Canada, began as early as 1731.
Asleep by the frozen sea is a phrase coined by Joseph Robson to describe the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from its foundation in 1670 until the establishment of its first inland post in 1774. Unlike the French who sent Coureurs des bois inland to trade, the HBC built posts on Hudson Bay and waited for the Indians to bring furs to them. The decision to abandon this policy and move inland gradually turned the HBC into an informal government for western Canada and led ultimately to the confederation of western and eastern Canada.
Michipicoten Provincial Park is a park in Ontario, Canada, located at the mouth of the Michipicoten River. The park preserves the ruins of a French trading post that operated from the early 1700s until it was abandoned by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1904.
