Long Range Interpretive Plan: Grand Portage National Monument, 2005

Abstract

This report summarizes the Park mission and goals and primary interpretive themes. It provides detail on visitor experiences, visitor experience goals, and existing conditions assessment, information about the Park website, and on-site visitor services and information. It lists interpretive programs, informal programs, facilities and wayside exhibits. A number of private and public partnerships are listed, as well as community events, curatorial and library services, and disability information. There are numerous recommendations to make the Park more amenable to visitors as a tourist destination. The report does not generally focus on water resources except for the introductory and background information at the beginning of the report. Key passages are extracted and reproduced below. Summary: "The Grand Portage or Gitchi Onigaming (Great Carrying Place) is an 8.4-mile trail on the northwestern periphery of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River drainage in the middle of North America. It connected the lakeshore with Pigeon River, an embarkation point for Native peoples, explorers, and voyageurs heading west and a gathering point for furs going east. The portage was the most direct route from the Great Lakes into the Canadian interior. Several falls and cataracts blocked human travelers’ use of the Pigeon River so that a portage was needed, hence the name “Grand Portage.” French and later British traders entered the Great Lakes-Northwest trade by traveling west from Montreal. Having learned to use birch bark canoes, they moved into the mid-continent along an established inland network of Indian canoe routes. Building on entrenched Indian exchange practices and catering to Indian preferences, traders bartered imported European goods and commodities for Indian furs, provisions, and services. This ultimately led to an intercultural exchange of languages, ideas, technologies, diseases, and genes. It also promoted commercial, political, and marital alliances. PLAN “When the North West Company and the XY Company moved their operations north to Kaministikwia (later Fort William, Ontario) at the beginning of the 19th century, Grand Portage became remote to the main channels of trade and communication and less important to the outside world. The boundary between Canada and the United States between Lake Superior and Lake of the Woods was not firmly established until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. Under the terms of that treaty, the Grand Portage clearly became United States property; however, the use of the trail was to remain free and open to citizens of both the United States and Great Britain. The historic portage represents the essential resources of Grand Portage National Monument, which is bordered on the north and south by the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, on the east by Lake Superior, and on the west by the Pigeon River and Canada. It lies within both the Grand Portage Indian Reservation and the unincorporated community of Grand Portage. The community is the homeplace and tribal government center of the Grand Portage Band of Minnesota Chippewa (Ojibwe)."