History of Saganaga Lake

History of Saganaga Lake. . Saganaga Lake is located along the Border Route, an ancient travel route between Lake Superior and the interior waters of Lac La Pluie (Rainy Lake) that is often referred to as The Voyageur's Highway., Saganaga Lake was an important linkage in a worldwide commercial system that involved both European and Native American participants from the late-17th century through the early-19th century. The rise of the Border Lakes fur trade, beginning in the 1730s, resulted in countless voyageurs (fur company laborers), canoes, and thousands of tons of trade goods passing along this corridor., At the height of the British Northwest Company (NWC) from ca. 1779 to 1802, trade goods typically arrived at the NWC depot at Grand Portage east of Lake Saganaga via 40 foot long birch bark "Montreal" canoes capable of hauling 3 tons of cargo on the open waters of the Great Lakes., After transport along the Grand Portage, cargo would be packaged into smaller sized "North" canoes, which were better suited to the range of water conditions and frequent portages that typified the route into the Pays d'en Haut, or Upper Country, of Canada's interior reaches., [Caption:] Shooting the Rapids, Frances Ann Hopkins 1879