Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: north west company

Grand Portage National Monument, on Lake Superior in far northern Minnesota. Furs were the North West Company's lifeblood. While they traded all kinds of goods, the company's main business was furs, and when the demand for furs died, the company's fortunes faltered.

Better LARGE . Menu by the kitchen door at Grand Portage National Monument, on Lake Superior in extreme northern Minnesota. We're supposed to imagine that the cook was preparing a meal for 100 guests, to be served in the great hall. She had one planked fish done when we visited, and was working on the Rhubarb Crisp.

The stockade, the roof of the Great Hall, and the "voyageur campground" show in this view from the dock at Grand Portage National Monument, on Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. That's Joan, of course, walking on the dock. The dock, of course, is not part of the reconstruction. It is, however, the boarding point for two of the Isle Royale ferries.

Another view of the North West Company's Great Hall at Grand Portage. Apparently all the partners would gather here to make corporate policy. It was pretty near the center of a coast-to-coast operation, so that sort of makes sense; on the other hand, transportation to remote Lake Superior must have been quite a project for the Montreal-based partners in the late 1700s, when this outpost was flourishing.

It's 1802, and the flag of the North West Co, a Canadian fur-trading company with a British charter, is still operating its remote headquarters at Grand Portage at the western end of Lake Superior. We sometimes call this "The willing suspension of disbelief." Grand Portage National Monument in northern Minnesota. That's Lake Superior beyond the stockade.