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MICHIGAN AS A PROVINCE 1 - 5
To facilitate the traffic a canal twenty-five hundred feet long was cut on the Canadian side between the islands and the main land for the passage of batteaux. A lock was constructed of timbers but it was not strong enough to stand against the pressure of the waters and was never operated. It was the first work of the kind in the west.
From time immemorial there have been Indian settlements of considerable importance about the Straits of Mackinac. On the south shore the land was fertile and produced Indian corn in plenty. Fish were very abundant. The place was easy of access by water and so became at a very early day the resort of European fur traders. Marquette had established his mission of St. Ignace on the other side of the strait, where were also Indian villages. Later the mission was moved over and a chapel and fort were erected at the point which afterward became known as "Old Mackinaw. " Here was established a strong-hold and trading post of the greatest importance, the rendezvous of traders,
trappers, coureurs de bois, soldiers, missionaries and savages. The place was strongly fortified and garrisoned. La Hontan writing from here in 1688 says: "Michilimackinac is certainly a place of great importance. Here the Hurons and Ottawas have each a village, being separated from each other by a single palisade. In this place the Jesuits have a little house or college, adjoining to a sort of church and enclosed with poles that separate it from the village of the Hurons. The coureurs de bois have but a very small settlement here; though at the same time it is not inconsiderable, as being the staple of all the goods that they truck with the south and west savages; for they cannot avoid passing this way when they go to the seats of the Illinois and the Oumamis, or to the Bay des Puants (Green bay) and to the river of the Mississippi. The skins which they import from these different places must lie here some time before they are transported to the colony. Michilimackinac is situated very advantageously, for the Iroquois dare not venture with their sorry canoes to cross the lakes; and as they cannot come to it by water so they cannot approach it by land, by reason of the marshes, fens and little rivers which it would be very difficult to cross. "
MICHIGAN
Page 56
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