Page 50 - USA ROAD TRIP SUMMER of 2000

He was cute as he didn’t know any of the answers but after he set

us up with some interesting videos, he got out some books and
looked up the information for us.

One of the videos was on the history of the logging industry in the
great northwest. The men cut and stored the trees in the winter.

After the thaw, they ran the logs into the rivers and shepherded
them to the mills. The same men that cut the trees in the winter

worked the mills in the spring and summer. The video had
marvelous footage of the logging camps and men at work in the

1930’s. This was another way of life that only immigrants who
were escaping some other form of hardship would chose.

Also with the help of the videos and our industrious Ranger, we
learned that the voyageurs built and used different sized canoes

(from 12 to 40 feet long) depending on whether they were in the
Great Lakes or beyond the Great Portage below Fort William on

the western shore of Lake Superior.

The Indians trapped the beaver, not the whites. The voyageurs to

the west of the Great Portage traded beads, rifles, and other
goods for the pelts. They then rowed the furs back to the Great

Portage and met there with the voyageurs that had rowed across
Lake Superior from Madison in the east. Those men brought with

them fresh supplies for Indian trade. The exchange was made and
both parties turned about and began the process all over again.

The fur trade was seasonal, dangerous, physically demanding,

and profitable. It only fell by the wayside when the 100-year

demand for beaver pelts for men’s and ladies’ hats in Europe and
the American colonies finally lost its fever pitch.

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