Excerpt from The Historical Geography of Detroit On July 24, 1701, a fleet of some two dozen canoes carrying Frenchmen and Indians, entered the Detroit River on a mission that was to introduce civilization into the Great Lakes region nearly one hundred years in advance of British-American progress from the Atlantic seaboard. One hundred persons - fifty uniformed soldiers, some twenty farmers, artisans, and traders, the remainder a few women and children - had come to plant an outpost of French power and influence in the wilderness about the Great Lakes. Forty-nine days before, they had left the head of the LaChine Rapids near Montreal. Fearing to give umbrage to the ever watchful Iroquois about the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, they had chosen the "Northern Route." Up the Ottawa they toiled, against the swift currents, around the many rapids, and thence by lakes, and rivers, with many portages, they reached Georgian Bay and later Lake Huron. After a voyage of over seven hundred miles they entered the "Strait," - "Detroit," in the language of the French. Down this they swept, passing many islands, and on across Lake St. Clair to the upper course of the Detroit River. They selected a commanding site for their fort on the right bank of the river, for this post was to control the traffic of the Upper Lakes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.