Page 63 - USA ROAD TRIP SUMMER of 2000

Our interpreter today confirmed that the coastline is scattered

with the graves of many of these men that didn’t survive this
extreme labor.

The whole history of fort lasted from 1778 to 1804. The resurvey
of the US – Canadian border after the Louisiana Purchase showed

the fort to be in the USA and not in Canada. To escape taxation by
the US, the Scots moved the center of the Northwest Company to

a new Fort William, just south of Thunder Bay. Might Microsoft be
thinking the more modern version of this grand escape?

We drove to the Canadian border to a State Park. The Pigeon River
is the border between Canada and the USA across Minnesota in

the east. There is a 120-foot falls on the river just a half-mile off
the road. This falls and the 24 others on the 20 miles upriver from

Lake Superior explains why the Voyageurs abandoned their canoes
and marched the hated Grand Portage overland to Port Charlotte

on the upper Pigeon River.

To round out the evening, we found the road marked “ No

Maintenance Performed” and drove several bumpy miles to
where the road crossed the Grand Portage Trail. The flying teeth

named deer flies were out so we just ran down the trail for a short
burst, had our picture taken by the timing device and our picnic

table, and then raced back to the car for the drive “home”. At least
we can truthfully say we walked the Voyageur’s trail even if it was

for such a brief interval.

Nice dinner at a restaurant on the Bay. Nobody had a tattoo.

Beautiful sunset.

Best tee shirt this week worn by a 50-something lady who
admitted to a “strict Catholic upbringing” – “Well-behaved women

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