Quetico Timeline

Introduction | Quetico Facts | Quetico Geology | Quetico Wildlife | Observation List | Quetico Timeline | Native Pictographs

End of the Ice Age

"In the past, the teaching of history in our schools has been dominated by traditions inherited from Europe. On that continent, history has been filled with battles, and the lives of national heroes. In Canada, we have had few decisive battles and not many dominant leaders. Much more important to our history has been the struggle of nameless Canadians to improve their lives in our often hostile environment. This struggle has produced its share of adventure and heroism." Pierre Elliott Trudeau (From Foreword to Eric Morse, Fur Trade Canoe Routs of Canada Then and Now )

23,000 B.C. - The glacial ice that molded and sculpted the land for about a million years starts shrinking.
9,000 B.C. - The glacier retreats through the northern part of Quetico.
7,900 B.C. - Glacier readvances and leaves a large moraine just north of the Park.

First Inhabitants

7,500 B.C. - Archaeologists estimate that the first humans, known to archaeologists as Paleoindians, enter Quetico. They are probably following herds of animals that graze on the vegetation that grew after the glacier retreated. Much of Quetico is covered at this time by Lake Agassiz, a massive lake formed by the waters from the melting glacier. Artifacts left behind on what we believe to have been the shoreline of this ancient lake include spear-points, large knives and scrapers. The artifacts indicate that they probably hunted primarily large mammals.
As the climate continues to warm, the water levels drop and the lakes in the Park assume the shapes they have today. The vegetation changes and fewer of the large mammals on which the Paleoindians subsist can survive in the region. Accordingly, the people adapt their lifestyle to the changed conditions. They are among the first people in the world to make metal tools, manufacturing copper spear-points, knives, awls, fishhooks, gaffs and other tools, in addition to continuing to make tools from stone. Fish has obviously become an important part of the local diet.
0 A.D. - Two important technological changes take place: the natives begin to use pottery to store and cook food and start to make arrow-heads.
Native lives continue to move with the seasons, in patterns and manners tied to the natural order of the Creator. The legacy of their culture and of the cultures that followed are found in their copper and stone tools, in the intricate designs of their clay pottery and in their sacred writings on stone.

Arrival of The French

1660 - French explorers Pierre Esprit Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers reach the general area.
1688 - Jacques de Noyon, a French explorer, is the first European explorer to document his travels along the water routes west of Superior. He winters at Rainy Lake. French missionaries, prospectors and traders begin to move into the region. They are quick to adopt aboriginal technology, using canoes in summer and snowshoes and toboggans in the winter.
1728 - La Verenderye learns more about the water route West of Superior to the Lake of the Woods from a native whose name he records as Auchagah. Auchagah draws a map of route on birch-bark that forms the basis of the first published map of the region. The French favour the route down the Kaministikwia River, across Pickerel Lake and Sturgeon Lake, further down the Maligne River to Lac La Croix.
1731 - La Verenderye sets out to find the route to the West with his sons and nephew along the route he learned of from Auchagah and Noyon. By 1740 La Verenderye had penetrated beyond Lake Winnipeg.
1759 - New France abandons trading posts towards the end of the French and Indian War.

Fur Trade Rivalry

"Life at the Grand Portage post was gay during its month of rendezvous. In the evening the 'gentlemen of the place' dressed and held a ball in the dining room to music provided by 'the Bag-pipe, the Violin, the Flute and the Fife'... While the gentlemen stepped through the quadrilles, the canoe men entertained themselves outside the great hall with casks of rum. They were 'soon merry, then quarrelled and fought' wrote trader Alexander Henry, who recorded that he saw voyageurs engaged in five brawls at once ' and soon after they all had bloody noses, bruised faces, black eyes and torn clothes'." With kind permession of copyright holder. From R. Newell Searle, Saving Quetico Superior: A Land Set Apart (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1977)

1779 - Northwest Company organized as furtrading concern by a number of Scots merchants, including Simon McTavish, William McKay and Archibald McLeod. For many years, Grand Portage is a busy trading centre and fort run by the Company near the base of Mount Josephine. It had storehouses, a counting house, a large mess hall, a smithy and other stores. "This is the Headquarters or General Rendezvous for all who trade in this part of the World," wrote Daniel Hermon of the frontier post. In the spring, about 1,000 men would gather around the fort in the hopes of being employed by the company.
1793 - The competition between the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company heats up in the region. The American XY Company and Jacob Astor's American Fur Company soon also arrive to compete for the lucrative furs.
1821 - After years of intense rivalry, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company merge their operations. The old French route - French through Sturgeon to Lac La Croix - becomes important once again.
1824 - Hudson's Bay Company establishes post on Basswood Lake.
1830 - Lac La Pluie trading post renamed Fort Frances in honour of bride of the Hudson's Bay Company Governor-in-Chief George Simpson.
1833 - The American fur company agrees to withdraw from Rainy Lake and the Winnipeg and Red River Districts.

The Quetico Boundary Dispute

1842 - The Webster-Ashburton treaty resolves longstanding differences of opinion between the U.S. and Britain regarding the border between British North America and the United States. An earlier treaty set the border along the customary route through the region. The problem with this formula was that there were several routes which had long been used to cross the area. The British position (established in 1823) is that the border ran from Lake Superior, up the St. Louis River and its tributaries to a portage to Lake Vermilion and along the Vermilion River to Crane Lake. This would have put all the Quetico Superior country in Canada. The U.S., on the other hand, claimed the border should run along the Kaministikwia route used by the North West Company from 1804 - 1821. Under the treaty, the border is set between the two positions along the Grand Portage route, used primarily before the Kaministikwia route became the main water highway.

Immigrants' Highway

1857 - Expedition sought an all-Canadian route through the region in order to have an efficient means of reaching the Red River Settlement. Simon J. Dawson is the expedition's surveyor and the Dawson Trail is named after him.
1867 - Canada established by the British North America Act.
1870 - Sir Garnet Wolseley uses the Dawson Trail to move troops to put down the Red River Rebellion.
1882 - Gold, silver and iron ore strikes are made within the Quetico Superior country, but the ore bodies were generally small and most of the mines were exhausted by 1891.
Late 1800s - Route used by hundreds of immigrants to the west. Oxen, horses and wagons were used on the portages. In some cases, wheel tracks can still be traced. Steam tugs and launches plied the lakes pulling barges laden with merchandise.

Coming of Railways

1876 - New railway route from Duluth to Moorhead, Minnesota and Red River sidewheelers begins transition from water to rail movement to the West. It also makes the area more accessible, fostering the rise of the lumber and mining industries in the area.
1885 - Canadian Pacific Railway provides direct route from Eastern Canada to prairies and Quetico water route is abandoned.

Park Established

Turn of the century - Lumbermen start to come to region, interested in harvesting white and red pine.
1909 - Game preserve established in area which is now Quetico Park after lobbying by W.A. Preston the M.P. for the Rainy River District, and journalist Arthur Hawkes. Superior National Forest set up south of the border in a contiguous area.
1913 - Area officially designated a Park. Regulations prohibit hunting or fishing within the Park.
1949 - Canadian Quetico-Superior Committee founded with the Right Honourable Vincent Massey as its Chairman.
1954 - Canadian Quetico-Superior Committee transformed into The Quetico Foundation. In keeping with the original intent, the Foundation is involved in activities which will, through a wise and informed public and private sector, preserve such areas as a wilderness experience, encouraging only such uses that are compatible with their long-term preservation.
1971 - Logging in the Park ceases.
1973 - Quetico reclassified as wilderness park.

Sources:
R. Newell Searle, Saving Quetico Superior - A Land Set Apart (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1977);
R. Beymer, A Paddler's Guide to Quetico Provincial Park (W.A. Fisher Company, 1994);
K. Denis, Canoe Trails through the Quetico (The Quetico Foundation, 1980).

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