This path is part of the historic trade route of the French-Canadian voyageurs and coureur des bois between their wintering grounds and their depots to the east.

Composed of the Pigeon River and other strategic interior streams, lakes, and portages, this route was of enormous importance in pre-industrial times.

It provided quick water access from Canada's settled areas and Atlantic ports to the fur-rich Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory.

As early as 2,000 years ago, Native American Nations probably used Gichi-onigaming, or "the Great Carrying Place", to travel from summer homes on Lake Superior to winter hunting grounds in the interior of Minnesota and Ontario.

In time, Grand Portage became the gateway into rich northern fur-bearing country, where it connected remote interior outposts to lucrative international markets.

[3] British operations in Grand Portage came under pressure after the signing of the Jay Treaty in 1795, the finalization of western portion of the U.S./Canada border in 1818, and gradual settlement of the Minnesota Territory by U.S. settlers.

They voted to move their summer headquarters from the protected shores of Lake Superior's Grand Portage Bay 50 miles (80 km) north to the mouth of the Kaministiquia River.

Almost from the time the British Nor'Westers had organized at Grand Portage in the mid-1780s, an emerging United States wanted them to stop competing with Americans in this territory.

They staff the Kitchen, Great Hall, Canoe Warehouse, Ojibwe Village and Voyageur Encampment in and around the Stockade, and explain and interpret what life was like at the trading post at the turn of the 18th century.

At the same time, the Grand Portage Indian Reservation holds a pow wow, which attracts many Native American visitors.

Opened in 2007, the Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center features exhibit galleries about Ojibwe culture and the fur trade, a bookstore, multi-media programs, park offices, archives and a classroom.

From Fort Charlotte the canoe route then went west up the Pigeon past the mouth of the Arrow River to the east-west Mountain Lake.

[9] Beginning at the stockade on Grand Portage Bay of Lake Superior, the 8.5-mile (13.7 km) trail leads westward into the wilderness to a mid-point on the Pigeon River, bypassing numerous rapids and a variety of waterfalls.

The portage begins on Lake Superior, elevation 600 feet (180 m), rising as it moves westward through two notches in the Sawtooth Mountain range.