The importance of physical conditions is nowhere more manifest than in
the exploration of the Northwest, and we cannot properly appreciate
Wisconsin's relation to the history of the time without first
considering her situation as regards the lake and river systems of North
America.
When the Breton sailors, steering their fishing smacks almost in the
wake of Cabot, began to fish in the St. Lawrence gulf, and to traffic
with the natives of the mainland for peltries, the problem of how the
interior of North America was to be explored was solved. The
water-system composed of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes is the key
to the continent. The early explorations in a wilderness must be by
water-courses--they are nature's highways. The St. Lawrence leads to the
Great Lakes; the headwaters of the tributaries of these lakes lie so
near the headwaters of the rivers that join the Mississippi that canoes
can be portaged from the one to the other. The Mississippi affords
passage to the Gulf of Mexico; or by the Missouri to the passes of the
Rocky Mountains, where rise the headwaters of the Columbia, which brings
the voyageur to the Pacific. But if the explorer follows Lake Superior
to the present boundary line between Minnesota and Canada, and takes the
chain of lakes and rivers extending from Pigeon river to Rainy lake and
Lake of the Woods, he will be led to the Winnipeg river and to the lake
of the same name. From this, by streams and portages, he may reach
Hudson bay; or he may go by way of Elk river and Lake Athabasca to Slave
river and Slave lake, which will take him to Mackenzie river and to the
Arctic sea. But Lake Winnipeg also receives the waters of the
Saskatchewan river, from which one may pass to the highlands near the
Pacific where rise the northern branches of the Columbia. And from the
lakes of Canada there are still other routes to the Oregon country.[61]
At a later day these two routes to the Columbia became an important
factor in bringing British and Americans into conflict over that
territory.
In these water-systems Wisconsin was the link that joined the Great
Lakes and the Mississippi; and along her northern shore the first
explorers passed to the Pigeon river, or, as it was called later, the
Grand Portage route, along the boundary line between Minnesota and
Canada into the heart of Canada.
It was possible to reach the Mississippi from the Great Lakes by the
following principal routes:[62]
1. By the Miami (Maumee) river from the west end of Lake Erie to the
Wabash, thence to the Ohio and the Mississippi.