Waters and Portages of the Grand Portage Trip
Portage lengths are in rods, (16.5 feet), 320 rods to one mile. Lakes, rivers and portages from Thunder Bay to Manitoba school compiled by Mole #657 MG-75
Lake Superior, Grand Portage, 2720 rods, Pigeon River, Partridge Falls, 78 rods, Fowl Portage, 372 rods, South Fowl Lake, North Fowl Lake, Moose Portage, L26 rods, Moose Lake, Great Cherry Portage, 1.42 rods, Vaseux Lake, Vaseux Portage, 43 rods, Fan Lake, Lesser Cherry Portage, 66 rods, Mountain Lake, Watap Portage, 89 rods, Watap Lake, Arrow River, Rove Lake, Long Portage 626 rods, Rose Lake, Rat Portage, 8 rods, Rat Lake, South Lake Portage, 70 rods, South Lake, Height of Land PORTAGE, 79 rods, North Lake, Little North Lake, Little North Portage, 12 rods, Little Gunflint Lake, Gunflint Lake, Magnetic Lake, Little Rock Falls, 18 rods, Wooden Horse Porta ge, 47 rods, Pine Portage, 100 rods, Clove Lake, Clove Lake Portage, 46 rods, Granite Lake, Swamp Portage,63 rods, Granite River, Granite River Portage, 23 rods, Gneiss Lake, Gneiss lake Portage, 25 rods Devil’s Elbow Lake, Devil’s Elbow Portage, 35 rods, Maraboeuf Lake, Horsetail Rapids, L9 rods, Granite River, Saganaga Falls, 11 rods, Saganaga Lake, Swamp Lake Portage, L2 rods, Swamp Lake, Plum Lake Portage, L2 rods, Monument Portage, 79 rods, Ottertrack Lake, Little Knife Portage, 15 rods, Knife Lake, Big Knife Portage, 73 rods, Portage Lake, Portage Lake portage, 34 rods, Seed Lake, Seed Portage, 22 rods, Melon Lake, Melon Portage, 24 rods, Carp lake, Carp Portage, 51 rods, Birch Lake, Prairie Portage, 32 rods, Basswood Lake, Basswood Falls, 361 rods, Basswood River, Wheelbarrow Portage, 49 rods, Lower Basswood Falls, 26 rods, Crooked Lake, Curtain Falls, 133 rods, lron Lake, lron Lake Portage, 326 rods, Lac La Croix, Beatty Portage, 40 rods, Loon Lake, Loon Falls Portage, 67 rods, Loon River, Little Vermillon Lake, Sand Point Lake, Namakan Lake, Kettle Falls, 145 rods, Rainy Lake, Fort Francis Dam, Rainy River, Lake of the Woods, Keewatin Portage, Winnipeg River, Gun Lake, Sand Lake, Roughrock Lake, Power dam, Tetu Lake, Eaglenest lake, Point du Bois dam, Slave Falls dam, Dorathy Lake, Otter Falls, Eleanor Lake, Sylvia Lake, Seven Sisters dam, Lac du Bonnet, McArthur Falls dam, Great Falls dam, Pine Falls dam, Traverse Bay, Lake Winnipeg, Red River.
I don’t know that anyone really feared The Grand. It was legendary. We talked about it a bunch, in anticipation. The journey traces one of canoeing’s storied fur trade routes. The Grand. In our dorm, it’s all we talked about while trying to get through the Manitoba winter and the 50-mile snowshoe runs. When Spring came, would we survive The Grand and its nine-mile portage?
It wasn’t a threat. It was just another challenge. If you wanted back in, you had to do a major canoe trip. At some point in your St. John’s career, it would be The Grand and it would be done in June. It seemed like every day before The Grand was just another day available to get ready – will you make it? Always the threat of failure. I don’t think you’re good enough to do it.
Were me and my fellow voyageurs good enough to be hommes du nord?
The first Grands were really just very ambitious New Boy trips, run in September before the start of school, not after.
People soon realized that to survive a long trip like The Grand, you had to be somewhat fit, and most of us, having survived at least one snowshoeing season capped by a 50-mile race across frozen Manitoba, were ready. In the early spring, we carried canoes and food boxes to the power lines and back to train.
A keystone of the vaunted outdoor program, the trip first began as the New Boy trip and took place before the start of the school year, not after. As you can imagine, shorter days and wind shortened the trip for some of the early students. (Robert Young Pelton, one of our more esteemed inmates (were there ever any) did not finish his Grand because of the weather. )
Richard and I thought it would be interesting to share with you his contemporaneous journal of the trip written shortly after the 1965 Grand Portage, we will relive the trip on Bedard’s Unofficial Podcast.
Each upcoming podcast will cover a segment of the Grand Portage trip as we make our way from Fort William to Winnipeg. In 1965, the trip ended in Winnipeg not just north of Selkirk, at the school. Enjoy!
In this episode, we make it all the way to Pigeon Falls. In the 17th century, Grand Portage became a major center of the fur trade. The “Grand Portage” got its name because a major canoe fur trade route of the voyageurs heading West left the Great Lakes from there. The route begins with a fabled nine-mile portage, where the canoes and equipment were carried over land.
Richard de Candole, the author of Toughest School in North America, reads from a diary he kept back in 1965 while doing the Grand Portage, a trip by canoe from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Selkirk, Manitoba. Pierre, who did his Grand Portage in 1974, nine years later, compares and contrasts his experience with Richard’s. The 1965 brigade was led by Ted Byfield. Pierre’s brigade was led by Peter Jackson, who was a paddler in 1965.
In this episode, we discover a pitfall – leaving a canoe behind on the Grand. Richard makes it to just before the Height of Land.
In this episode, we make our way toward the Height of Land. We ponder all sorts of things, like the cleansing waters of the Pigeon River. Comparing and contrasting the 60s and 70s, we sacrifice ourselves to the mosquitoes and black flies of the Boundary Waters watershed.
Was on the ’63 Grand… crossed the portage twice… once with a tent and back to help with a canoe.. no fun… great memory.
Reaching and jumping in the cooling, cleansing refreshing waters of the Pigeon was a fitting climax to the Grand. We frolicked until a party pooping Anglican priest, John Sandercock, arrived channeling the wrath of God, which he dumped upon us for not rushing back to help the second crew under their canoe, food boxes, pot packs, duffel etc, etc.