How History Was Made in Gogebic County

County and the Surrounding Area

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Mountains, volcanos, glaciers and the erosion of time and weather have left their imprint on Gogebic County. The hills, in the western part of the county, are but stubs and roots of a mountain chain that millions of years ago was higher than the rocky mountains of today. Eruptions poured out molten lava and fluid rock oozed up through crevices to spread over the country, forming the world’s oldest rock – Laurentian granite and Keewatin greenstone.

Fifteen thousand years ago, north and east of Lake Gogebic, the retreating fourth and last of the glaciers, which pushed over Michigan during a period of a million years, formed glacial Lake Ontonagon. Its outlet was through present Lake Gogebic and westward, where Bingham Creek now enters the lake, past the range cities of Wakefield, Bessemer, Ironwood, and Hurley, Emptying into glacial Lake Ashland in the northwestern part of Iron County, Wisconsin.

The first of the glaciers, started moving out of the Hudson Bay region about a million years ago and the last one melted away some 15,000 or 20,000 years ago. The western half of the Upper Peninsula and the adjacent Wisconsin territory were in process of formation during a period of two billion years.

Eventually peace came to this region and it remained in serene solitude and isolation until the coming of the white man and the discovery of iron ore.

Flags of three nations have flown over this region we now call the Gogebic Range. The first Europeans to discover the Great Lakes were the French who held the country bordering upon these inland seas until 1763. England took possession following the Seven Years War and held sway for twenty years until title passed to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Fur, especially that of the beaver, was the magnet that drew the first white men to the Lake Superior wilderness while precious metals were the lure for exploration of other areas of the American continent.

When the French in the early 1600’s established a system of fur fairs at Montreal, men brought the product of their trap lines for sale or barter. Samuel de Champlain, founder and governor of New France, originated the idea of sending young Frenchmen home with the people to study their language, customs and the geography of the region. Thus it was that Etienne Brule, in 1618, became the first white man to see the greatest of fresh water lakes and paddle a bark canoe along the shores of Lake Superior.

Development of the fur trade bought two new classes of men into being . . . Coureurs des bois, or rangers of the woods, and Voyageurs, or canoemen. These hardy pioneers, inured to hardship, were a strong and sturdy set, tireless and fearless, resourceful in emergencies. With muscles of steel they guided their frail canoes through the waves of the big lake when in storm and ran the perilous rapids of fast moving streams. They roamed the trackless wilderness in search of furs, helped the missionary on his way and for 200 years were lords of the vast northwest wilderness.

With a decrease in the supply and demand for furs, this race of agile, reckless daredevils disappeared from lake and stream as quickly as the spindrift raised by their speeding canoe. Their well- beaten portage trails have been for the most part covered by encroaching forests. Their names are not recorded in history, but they are the heroes who blazed the trails for the development of the great northwest.

The first white men to leave us an account of their explorations were Pierre-Esprit Raddisson and Medard Chouart des Goseillers who made the first of four trips to Lake Superior in 1654. These men explored the south shore of Lake Superior and much of what are now Northern Michigan, Northwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Minnesota.

These travelers probably camped over-night at the mouth of the Presque Isle or Montreal rivers since these were the historic over-night camping grounds. Men followed the same routes and used the same campgrounds.

Upon the return to Montreal of Radisson and Groseilliers on the 19^th of August, 1660, accompanied by an Ottawa flotilla of sixty canoes, it was decided that a missionary should return with them to their homeland. This decision was momentous for what was to become Gogebic County some 225 years later, as it brought to this area the earliest recorded instance of white men traversing the county and camping within its boundaries.

This missionary volunteer was Pere Rene Menard, a learned and cultured member of the Society of Jesus. Menard was then fifty-five years of age. Though aged prematurely, he possessed a lofty soul and a stout heart.

The route followed by the French from Montreal to Lake Superior was for 200 years, one of the great trade routes of the American continent. Nearly 700 miles in length, up the Ottawa River to its source, via the Mattawan River and Lake Nipissing, then descending the French River to Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. Thence, the course lay west, passing Sault Ste. Marie and coasting the southern shore of Lake Superior.

The most important artery for transportation of goods through Gogebic County in the days of the fur trade was the Montreal River portage extending from Lake Superior to Lac du Flambeau. The name of this river appears on the oldest map ever made of Lake Superior. Fathers Claude Allouez and James Marquette, missionaries who followed in the footsteps of Pere Rene Menard, made a map of the Lake Superior region in 1669; a map so accurate that it was used for navigation purposes until well into the 18^th century. These famous missionaries mapped the entire 1600 miles of Superior’s shore line and though not required by their assignment, noted geographical features including islands which they explored. Foster and Whitney note that "even Caribou, a low island in the midst of the lake and not visible except within a few leagues, did not escape their observation." The name Montreal probably was given the river because the bluffs at its mouth reminded the mapmakers of the mountain at Montreal.

The Montreal River portage trail commenced on Lake Superior east of the mouth. (It is outlined on the county recreational map published a few years ago by the Gogebic County Board of Supervisors.) It touched the stream about six or seven miles from the lake at a point above the falls; here crossing the river the path continued up the left bank, at some distance back from the stream. It ended at what was in those days called Portge Lake, but now known as Long Lake. From this lake it was a two days journey by canoe through a network of streams and lakes to Lac du Flambeau. The portage part of the trail was figured at 120 pauses of about forty-five miles. Distances were measured in the number of pauses or the time’s voyageurs had to rest. The load of each voyageur was two packs; each weighing eighty to ninety pounds.

On July 9, 1804, the North West Fur Company dispatched one of its men, Francois Victor Malhoit, from Fort William to Lac du Flambeau to establish a trading post. Delayed by rough seas and stop-overs at Lapointe and the bad River, it was July 25 when the party arrived at the portage of the Montreal River. At LaPoint the men had been given time to make themselves shoes for crossing the Portage. At the Bad River were found great flocks of passenger pigeons and 24 were killed for food. Malhoit, with seven of his men, arrived at Lac du Flambeau August 2, 1804. Buildings were erected, a fort constructed and preparations made to spend the winter in pursuit of their business.

Many tons of supplies had to be transported in canoes nearly a thousand miles from Montreal by the Ottawa River route. The goods had to be packed on the backs of men over difficult portages. Merchandise for trading purposes included such items as rum, tobacco, blankets, powder, bullets, axes, knives, beads, ear rings, etc. Staple food supplies were also transported from Montreal. In our time it is almost impossible to conceive of men following an occupation involving so much physical effort. Surely, these voyageurs were a tough and hardy lot.

The winter at Lac du Flambeau was one of trouble competition with the X Y Fur Company agents. Nevertheless, Malhoit had a successful season and obtained an abundance of furs. Of the country he relates: "That of all the spots and places I have seen in my thirteen years of travel, this is the most horrid and most sterile." And of the portage road "it is narrow, full of overturned trees, obstacles, thorns and muskegs. This vile portage is inhabited solely by owls because no other animal could find a living here, and the hoots of those solitary birds are enough to frighten an angel or intimidate a Caesar."

The coming of spring in 1805 was no doubt, most welcome. Now Malhoit and his crew could leave this isolated spot for the company’s headquarters at Fort William with its, comparatively speaking, "civilization." With fine weather and all men in good health, departure was taken at 5 p.m., May 23. On the 26^th they reached Pine Lake, and Balsam River on the 29^th. Lake Superior was sighted June 5 and on this day the last of the food was eaten. At noon on June 6^th portage was completed. It had been an arduous journey with water sometimes up to the knees of the men, and they were continually plagued by millions of flies. Following a two-day rest they left the Montreal River and headed for the end of the lake by way of LaPoint in their fur laden canoes.

Lack of accurate maps, and insufficient first hand knowledge of the western country, embroiled Michigan in long drawn-out controversies over its southern and western boundary lines. Lake Michigan’s southern shore was much farther south than originally assumed and the Upper Peninsula was not an Island.

The question of Ohio’s northern border and the southern boundary of Michigan were contested for thirty years, ending only when a bloodless war between the states finally faded out and their names were disbanded. Ohio retained the disputed territory. Trouble over the boundary line had delayed Michigan’s admission as a state of the union. Michigan lost a strip of land from five to ten miles wide embracing some 400 square miles of territory. As compensation, the Upper Peninsula was given to the state of Michigan, When it was admitted to the Union, to the objection of many of its people who protested, "they did not want the sterile wastes of the north, a barren and valueless tract in the region of perpetual snow." Lucius Lyon, one of Michigan’s two first U. S. senators battled, almost single-handed against the prejudice of his constituents, for the Upper Peninsula. 

Wisconsin became a territory about the same time Michigan became a state and it was now necessary to mark the dividing line which was described as running through the main channel of Green Bay and the Menominee River to the mouth of the Montreal River. Maps of 1838 showed the Menominee River to Green Bay as one outlet of Lac Vieux Desert and the Montreal River as also an outlet flowing into Lake Superior.

Crossing the Straits of Mackinac, from the once pine covered Lower Peninsula, and sawing their way northward through Wisconsin’s forests, lumbermen discovered a virgin forest of hemlock, pine and hardwoods in Gogebic County. Some noble specimens of this forest were saplings, growing vigorously, when the boy Columbus was playing around the docks and ships in Genoa’s harbor, and dreaming, perhaps, of a land across the sea.

Since 1880 this forest has been mostly cut over, leaving but few stands of virgins timber. The product of the harvest helped build homes for settlers throughout the middle west and went underground to make possible the mining of300,000,000 tons of iron ore.

In 1941 the Gogebic County embarked upon a county forest project to demonstrate that with selective cutting, under proper management, forests could be perpetuated, of increasing value and quality. By 1956 the project included 45,604 acres out of the total of 703,102 acres in the county.

Originally extended into Gogebic County in 1931, the Ottawa National Forest now contains 275,351 acres. Supervised by professional foresters of the United States Forest Service, the Ottawa will continue to furnish timber for the needs of the American people.

Privately owned and scientifically managed timber holdings include another large segment of Gogebic County.

Conservation of our God-given natural resources will, for all time, preserve for future generations the utilitarian value and scenic beauty of the great north woods.