Grand Portage National Monument: Maintenance Area Preliminary Survey Report

Birk, Douglas

During 2-9 June 2005, archeologists conducted a preliminary field survey of selected areas around the maintenance (and former seasonal housing) complex at the Grand Portage National Monument (GRPO), a park unit of the National Park Service (NPS). The survey sought material evidence of the historic fur trade, including a reported segment of the old Grand Portage and a possible contemporary trail that forded Grand Portage Creek. The survey team conducted surface and subsurface investigations, retrieved a small sample of fur trade era artifacts, and found previously unrecorded archeological features outside the designated project area. This report discusses the methods and results of the field survey. It also reviews prior archeological investigations and scrutinizes historical information relative to the 2005 Survey Area. The author, and archeologist David Cooper, Chief of Resource Management at the GRPO, led the field investigations. Other NPS staff and volunteers assisted the fieldwork (see Acknowledgments, above). THE GRAND PORTAGE NATIONAL MONUMENT The GRPO is located near the United States-Canadian Border in Cook County, in extreme northeastern Minnesota. The 709.97-acre GRPO is over eight miles long. It is bounded on the north and south by the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, on the west by the Pigeon River, and on the east by Grand Portage Bay of Lake Superior. The lakefront unit of the park is within the community of Grand Portage, home to the Grand Portage Band of Minnesota Chippewa (Ojibwe, Anishinaabeg). An iconic feature of the GRPO is the reconstructed North West Company (NWC) Depot set on the shore of the lake below Mount Rose. The GRPO was established in 1958 to preserve historical properties, to protect scenic and natural values, and to foster relations and promote employment with the Grand Portage Ojibwe. At the GRPO and elsewhere the National Historic Preservation Act (P.L. 96- 515) requires the NPS to identify and evaluate archeological resources on its lands to determine their eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (Birk 2005). The 2005 field survey is part of this ongoing process.