Original - North Central Michigan College Library

Cratoelg anfc&tJfoenturegwhich lie between the water and the mountain.The Pays Plat is intersected by several largerivers, and particularly the Nipigon, so calledafter Lake Nipigon, of which it is the discharge.By this river the French carried on aconsiderable trade with the Northern Indians.They had a fort or trading-ho*use.at its mouth,and annually drew from it a hundred packs ofbeaver of a quality more in esteem than thatfrom the Northwest. They had another trading-houseat Caministiquia. 24 'As we proceednorthwest along the lake the mountains recedewidely from the beach.On the twenty-fourth I left the northernshore and in four days reached the GrandPortage. 25 The intervening islands consist24At the mouth of the Kaministiquia River, whereFort William now stands. The latter fort was erectedby the North West Company in 1804. Here yearlymeetings of the factors of the Company were held, theproceedings at which have been charmingly narratedby Washington Irving in Astoria. Editor.25Grand Portage was at the beginning of the Pigeon-Rainy River route from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg,a few miles south of the mouth of Pigeon River.The place was well known during the French period, andat the beginning of the British regime it became animportant center of fur-trade activities. Jonathan Carverfound many traders here in 1767. From about thistime until the establishment of Fort William in 1804Grand Portage was the center of the fur trade of the farNorthwest. Its decay was owing to the discovery thatit lay south of the boundary between Canada and theUnited States; since British traders were not permittedto operate in the latter country, upon this discovery they229