Mile 10310

 It has rained all night, and this morning the sky is not very inviting.  We nonetheless head out of town and find Rt-11 to the Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park.  We hit the trails and learn a lot about the fur traders and the voyageurs as they traveled along the portage here, heavily used by the North West Company before they merged in 1821 with the Hudson Bay Company.  

Kakabeka Falls

From here we trace our way back along the TCH to the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park for a late lunch and a seat in the sun.  

Sleeping Giant from Thunder Bay and from Lake Marie Louise

Enjoying the sunshine in Silver Islet, ON

After that it is back to Thunder Bay and the Fort William Historical Park.  Here the story of the fur traders and voyageurs portages continues and we get a good inside into the living at Fort Williams at around 1815, the peak of the fur trading.  Forth Williams was a kind of exchange fort, where trappers and indigenous people be coming form further West would trade their fur for goods of daily life, and the NWC would take the furs from here to Montreal to be shipped to England for further processing into clothing and articles of luxury.  At its peak, Fort Williams would process / handle about 200,000 pounds of fur per year.  Due to increasing competition with the Hudson Bay Company, the NWC was 1821 absorbed by the HBC, but the Fort continued trading fur till the 19-hundredth.  Very interesting and educational afternoon.

Fort William, Entrance and map of America 1989 to 1793 with Mackenzie's Track

House of the merchants, fur storehouse and boots builder workshop

"Ghosts of those days of the voyageur stalk the portages, and phantom brigades move down the waterways, and it is said that singing can be heard on quiet nights."  -  from Bill Mason's 'Song of the Paddle'