Grand Portage National Monument, established by Congress in 1958 and located within the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, is dedicated when Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton accepts the site from the Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. The eight-and-a-half-mile Gichi Onigamiing (the Great Carrying Place) near the mouth of the Pigeon River was a major gateway into the interior of North America for exploration, the fur trade, and commerce.