Good points Jimbo.

As a hobby, I've been looking for the "route" that MacKenzie must have followed to travel from Grand Portage through to Athabasca, then the Great Slave Lake to pick up the Deh Cho, aka The MacKenzie river for his ill-fated trip to find the Northwest Passage.  Brian Castner's book, Disappointment River partially covers his own voyage and MacKenzie's story which is fascinating. Peter Pond was quite the character as well.

An Indian tribe that hired out to the fur traders to portage for them at Methye (and many other places) were known as the "Carrier Indians" (sometimes also called "the Dakelh").  That is not to say the fur traders didn't move their own stuff much of the time, too (probably most of the time). 

The Methye Portage was already infamous by the time Sir Alexander Mackenzie used it to do the first-ever crossing of the North American continent, more than a dozen years before Lewis & Clark managed it a little further south.  In fact, Lewis & Clark had the benefit of some of Mackenzie's maps for their later crossing.

Anyway, I've always had an affinity for the "Carrier Indians."  I think of them often when dealing with the more troublesome Quetico & WCPP portages, wishing they were around to hire out. 

If you are looking for some fascinating historical reads, look no further than accounts dealing with Canadian frontier figures the likes of Mackenzie, Peter Pond, George Simpson, and especially David Thompson.  They are packed full of adventure, canoeing legends, and Dakelh... the Carrier Indians.

Jimbo   

I'd NEED "METH" to do that bad boy!!

La Loche Portage:
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Who's game? 

HighnDry wrote on Aug 12^th, 2021 at 2:32am:


But it’s very scenic…

Well you can get through Sweet Grass, MT in about 15 minutes....just a heck of portage back to Quetico...

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

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I just read there has been a negotiated settlement to the work slowdown.  That should help matters. Lines were sometimes 6 miles long yesterday.  I've only experienced such a line at I-Falls once.  It was brutal.

Jimbo  :

A news report this morning put border crossing time at International Falls at an average of 7 hours yesterday.

I had also read somewhere that Canadian staffers are conducting "work slowdowns" as a form of protest since they cannot legally walk off the job.

Wishing you good luck & much patience if you are headed north.

Jimbo 

Mad_Mat wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2021 at 11:38pm:


Yep. A lot of angry Canadians now. The US pressured Canada for months and months to open the borders. Everyone expected reciprocal action by the US right after. Nope. US border still closed.

No matter. I’ll be in Quetico this time next week.  Maybe I will run into some of you!