I took a lovely walk along the beginning of the La Vase Portages the other day. I had to end it here because I didn’t bring my canoe.
It is important that this historical portion of the Voyageur Canoe Route to the West be preserved. This local organization has a mission to do just that.
Filed under Photographs
Imagine voyageurs padding along this path in early spring on the way to Lake Superior.
This is part of the Lavase Portages which saw such traffic for 150 years.
Opening Canada to commerce one (large) canoe at a time.
Filed under Uncategorized
For about 150 years the canoes of the North West Company left Montreal in the spring bound for Grand Portage on Lake Superior. There they met canoes from Western Canada and exchanged trading goods and supplies for furs. Returning by the same route in late summer they would arrive in Montreal in the fall. This is a part of one of the many portages that they were forced to make. It lies between the Ottawa/Mattawa river system and Lake Nipissing. Crossing this portage got the canoes to Lake Nipissing and eventually via the French River into Lake Huron which connected to Lake Superior.
An exciting story which includes this unexciting piece of swamp where the mud (“la vase”) and the mosquitos drove the Voyageurs to distraction with every upriver trip. By autumn, the mosquitos were gone and the swamp drier.
The canoes portaged here were large “canots de maitre”, 35-40 feet long and carrying up to 10 000 pounds including a crew of 10-14 paddlers.
In recent years, the Friends of the Lavase Portages have worked hard to keep them open and in the public mind. It has been an uphill battle from the beginning.
Filed under Photographs
This is the mouth of the Lavase River, where it enters Lake Nipissing. For 150 years The Voyageurs paddled through this channel in the spring, on their way west to Thunder Bay on Lake Superior. The return voyage passed this point and ended up in Montreal in the Autumn. Lake Nipissing is controlled by dams on the French River these days, and there are navigation markers in place. However the place is pretty much the same as it would have been 150 years ago.
In the spring the water would be much higher than it is in this photograph, but by fall it would probably have been as you see it here.
Filed under Photographs
photodyssey 