Grand Portage sign inside Jay Cooke State Park

Grand Portage sign inside Jay Cooke State Park. This six-mile trail, not to be confused with its better-known namesake, skirts the rapids and waterfalls on the St. Louis River. Voyageurs traveling along this route, which today lies within Jay Cooke State Park, headed into the Mississippi Basin or to Lake Superior. Used by Dakota people for centuries, this Grand Portage (a section of the Northwest Trail) was adopted by the voyageurs in 1798, after the North West Company built a trading post at Sandy Lake. Photo by Jon Lurie, 2020.