Detail of a map of the "Hydrographical basin of the upper Mississippi River from astronomical and barometrical observations, surveys, and information," created in 1843 by Joseph N. Nicollet for the US War Department. The drafters of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (1851) used the map to delineate land cessions, and to claim land from the Sisseton Dakota around Pipestone Quarry that was actually the territory of the Yankton Dakota. The Yankton did not cede said territory until the ratification of an 1858 treaty signed in Washington, DC.

A demonstration of how to thresh wild rice, September 1, 2021.

Ojibwe wigwam interactive display inside of the Grand Portage National Monument Heritage Center. The opening of the site’s Heritage Center in 2017 shifted the site’s offices from Grand Marais to Grand Portage and provided a larger space for more inclusive interpretation. Photograph by Flickr user Ken Lund, August 14, 2018. CC BY-SA 2.0

Ojibwe dancers and their audience at the 1951 ceremony dedicating the Grand Portage site as a National Historic Site. Photograph by Abbie Rowe.

Image from the 1951 ceremony dedicating Grand Portage as a National Historic Site. Ed Wilson, the chief of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT), is shown speaking at a podium in front of the reconstructed Great Hall. Mike Flatt, head of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, is seated at right. The Grand Portage Band is part of the MCT, which was created as a result of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The ceremony was attended by politicians, officials, and conservationists from Minnesota, the federal government, and Canada—some of whom are visible behind Wilson and Flatt. Photograph by Abbie Rowe.

The site of archaeological excavations at Grand Portage undertaken by Civilian Conservation Corps Indian Division (CCC-ID) workers, 1937. The excavations uncovered building foundations and stockade post holes that were used to reconstruct the Great Hall and stockade several years later.

An Ojibwe man (possibly Paul LaGarde) standing on the Grand Portage trail on July 10, 1922, during an expedition initiated by Minnesota Historical Society director Solon Buck. The man is identified as a guide who helped MNHS Field Secretary Cecil Shirk and Minneapolis journalist Paul Bliss retrace the trail, which was threatened by private landowners. Publicity from the expedition sparked interest amongst white Minnesotans in preserving the trail and depot sites.

Minnesota Historical Society Field Secretary Cecil W. Shirk and guide Paul LaGarde (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) stand on the foundations of a building at the site of Fort Charlotte, July 10, 1922. Fort Charlotte was the depot at the western end of the Grand Portage trail, on the south shore of the Pigeon River. Shirk (at right) stands in the remains of a cellar, and LaGarde (left) stands on foundation remains. The image is from a 1922 expedition initiated by MNHS director Solon Buck to retrace and recover the trail, which was threatened by private landowners. Publicity from the expedition sparked interest amongst white Minnesotans in preserving the trail and depot sites.

Ojibwe families building canoes on Sandy Point in Shagawa Lake (outside present-day Ely), ca. 1900. In 1909, the site became part of the Superior National Forest. Public domain.