13 Jun Introduction

My name is Patrick Pierre and I am attending Bemidji State University. I am a undergraduate student going into my junior year and I am studying Wildlife biology.

I’ll be working at the Grand Portage National Monument. I have worked here before, but since there is so much history and still more to be discovered, I am learning new stuff everyday. We are located at the tip of Minnesota, next to the largest fresh water lake in the world (Gitchi Gami) or known as Lake Superior. The Grand Portage National Monument is a historic site, and the reason we only have two historic buildings is because they are built where the original buildings were. If they build more, they are losing more history in the ground than gathering it. The site contains two replicas of historic buildings where the fur trade was held. Grand Portage was the biggest fur post in America with over 1,200 people come during the summer. The Grand Portage Trail is 8 miles long, and  on this route, people from other fur posts would hike down with the furs to bring it to the post. Coming from the east are people from Montreal carrying the goods like jewelry, clothes etc. This place, if you think about it, is the biggest distribution center in the world and the little outposts in Canada are like the Walmarts back then.