y of the region in question, the operations of
the Hudson's Bay Company being confined chiefly to the region further
north. At the period of which we speak, the bulk of the trading was
done by means of birch canoes, some of them large enough to carry two
or three tons. With these, the traders passed up to the Indian
settlements in the fall, with goods, provisions, and trinkets, usually
returning to the trading posts during the month of June with the furs
which they had procured in exchange. Mackinac and the Saut were
trading posts at an early day. At a somewhat later period, the
Northwest Company had an agency on an island in Lake Huron, not far
from the month of Saut river. The formation of the American Fur
Company was of more recent date, that company dating its origin during
the war of 1812, or soon after.

Prior to the building of the canal, a number of steamers had been
taken over the portage to Lake Superior, but so far as our knowledge
extends, only one or two craft larger than a canoe were ever taken
over the rapids, one of which was the schooner Mink. She was built of
red cedar, on Lake Superior, about the year 1816, and was of some
forty tons burden. She became the property of Mack & Conant, who had
her brought down the rapids. In making the descent she suffered some
injury by striking against a rock, but, notwithstanding this mishap,
she lived long enough to ride out many a stormy sea, running for
several years in the trade between Buffalo and the City of the
Straits. Shubael Conant, Esq., at this day an honored citizen of
Detroit, was one of the firm that purchased the Mink.

In the spring of 1845, the fleet on Lake Superior consisted of the
schooner White Fish, belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, the
Siscowit, belonging to the American Fur Company, and the Algonquin,
owned by a Mr. Mendenhall. The same year the schooners Napoleon,
Swallow, Uncle Tom, Merchant, Chippewa, Ocean, and Fur Trader, were
all added. In 1845, the propeller Independence, the first steamer that
ever floated on Lake Superior, was taken across the portage, and the
next year the Julia Palmer followed her, she being the first
side-wheel steamer. In the winter of 1848-9, the schooner Napoleon was
converted into a propeller. In 1850, the propeller Manhattan was
hauled over by the Messrs. Turner, and the Monticello in 1851, by Col.
McKnight. The latter was lost the same fall, and Col. McK. supplied
her place the next winter with the Bal