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Snake River Fur Post

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Reconstructed row house at Snake River Fur Post

Reconstructed row house at the Snake River Fur Post in Pine City, Minnesota, 2010s.

For a single trading season between the fall of 1804 and the spring of 1805, the Snake River Fur Post was an epicenter of the Upper Mississippi fur trade. The stockaded structure, supervised by veteran trader John Sayer, was a place where employees of the North West Fur Company came together with Ojibwe and Metis hunters and trappers. The Minnesota Historical Society rebuilt the post’s buildings and opened them as a historic site in 1970.

The land on which the Snake River Fur Post was built in 1804 was, and still is, Ojibwe homeland. At that time, the Ojibwe had held a powerful position in the fur trade for over 175 years. Their homeland and influence reached from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains in the west, and to the homelands of the Cree and Assiniboine in the north. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States laid colonial claim to much of present-day Minnesota. It lacked, however, a real presence in the region, and the Indigenous peoples of the area continued to trade with British companies.

Incorporated in 1779 and headquartered in Montreal, the North West Company traded with Ojibwe people living in present-day Canada and the Upper Midwestern United States. Eager to expand its business and compete with the XY Company, the North West Company sent experienced trader John Sayer to the lands of the Snake River band of Ojibwe in 1804.

A North West company employee named Joseph Réaume had been trading on the Snake River since 1802, and Sayer had visited the region before. But in 1804, Sayer was ordered to establish a more permanent band-level post to satisfy the Ojibwe living near Ginebig-ziibi (Snake River).

Sayer had been working for British fur trade companies since the 1770s in the Fond du Lac District, southwest of Lake Superior. He was a bourgeois, a French term marking his status as a wintering partner and stockholder with the North West Company. Bourgeois were the highest-ranking employees to work directly with Native Americans, and Sayer spent considerable time in Ojibwe communities at Grand Portage and Fond du Lac. The Ojibwe incorporated Sayer into their kinship and cultural practices. They taught him their language and the Indigenous custom of reciprocity, which governed the fur trade.

An Ojibwe woman named Obemau-unoqua, daughter of a leader named Mamongazida, married Sayer and started a family. She came from an influential Ojibwe family who lived at Chequamegon (present-day Wisconsin), and her father was a renowned hunter and war leader. Obemau-unoqua also had kinship ties to the Bdewakantunwan Dakota. As the wife of a bourgeois, she held a privileged status, and servants attended to her needs.

When Sayer and his party arrived in the area, the local Ojibwe welcomed them. They exchanged gifts, and the Ojibwe recommended that Sayer’s party build a post on the banks of Ginebig-ziibi. The party constructed the Snake River Fur Post from October 9 to November 20, 1804. It included a six-room row house with living quarters, a warehouse, and a trade shop. The rowhouse was enclosed by a stockade with a main gate and a river entrance.

Through the winter of 1804–1805, the Ojibwe trapped beaver and hunted other fur-bearing animals. Sayer’s employees spent much of their time hunting, chopping firewood, and visiting the winter lodges of the Ojibwe. Ojibwe people from communities on the Yellow, St. Croix, and Snake rivers, as well as Lake Pokegama, interacted with Sayer’s company. They represented their people’s interests and worked as hunters, trappers, and guides. Some known names of the local Ojibwe were Miqauanance, Kisketawak, Wishaima, and Shagobay.

When spring arrived, the Ojibwe brought their furs to Sayer, traded for goods, and settled debts. On April 26, 1805, the North West Company party left the Snake River Fur Post and returned to Fort St. Louis at Fond du Lac. It is unknown if the Snake River Fur Post was used after Sayer’s party departed in 1805. Eventually, the buildings fell into ruin and burned.

In 1963, the Minnesota Historical Society conducted field testing at the site on the advice of a local who believed the area to be the former location of the Snake River Fur Post. The tests were positive, and archaeology continued over the next three summers. The Minnesota Historical Society purchased the land, and in 1966 the Minnesota Legislature funded the reconstruction of the post. The historic site opened to the public in 1970.

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Birk, Douglas. “Sayer, John.” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5. Toronto, OT: University of Toronto, 2003.
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/sayer_john_5E.html

——— . The Messrs. Build Commodiously: A Guide to John Sayer’s 1804–1805 North West Company Wintering Expedition to the Snake River, Minnesota. [Brainerd, MN]: Evergreen Press of Brainerd, 2004.

Birk, Douglas, and Bruce M. White. “Who Wrote the ‘Diary of Thomas Connor?” Minnesota History 46, no. 5 (Spring 1979): 170–188.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/46/v46i05p170-188.pdf

Brown, Jennifer S. H. Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1980.

Buffalohead, Priscilla. “Farmers, Warriors, Traders: A Fresh Look at Ojibway Women.” Minnesota History 48. No. 6 (Summer 1983): 236–244.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/48/v48i06p236-244.pdf

Campbell, Marjorie Wilkins. The Northwest Company. Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 1983. Third edition.

Coddington, Donn M. “A Fur Trade Mystery Solved.” Early Man 4, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 16–20.

Gilman, Carolyn. Where Two Worlds Meet: The Great Lakes Fur Trade. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1982.

Goodsky, Sandra L. Angwaamas: It’s About Time; A Research Report on the Ojibwe–European Fur Trade Relations from an Ojibwe Perspective. Duluth, MN: Blue Sky Consulting, [1993].

Morrison, David A. “The North West Company, 1779–1821.” Canadian Encyclopedia, October 18, 2013.

Nelson, George. My First Years in the Fur Trade: The Journals of 1802–1804. Edited by Laura Peers and Theresa Schenck. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002.

Nute, Grace Lee. The Voyageur. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987.

Podruchny, Carolyn. Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Podruchny, Carolyn, and Laura Peers, eds. Gathering Places: Aboriginal and Fur Trade Histories. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.

Ray, Arthur J. Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660–1870. Toronto, OT: University of Toronto Press, 1974.

Sayer, John. John Sayer’s Snake River Journal, 1804–1805: A Fur Trade Diary From East Central Minnesota. Edited by Douglas Birk. [Minneapolis, MN: Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, 1989].

Van Kirk, Sylvia. “Many Tender Ties”: Women in Fur-trade Society in Western Canada, 1670–1870. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

Warren, William. History of the Ojibwe People. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984.

White, Bruce. “A Skilled Game of Exchange: Ojibway Fur Trade Protocol.” Minnesota History 50, no. 6 (Summer 1987): 228–240.
http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/50/v50i06p229-240.pdf

Wingerd, Mary Lethert. North Country: The Making of Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Related Images

Reconstructed row house at Snake River Fur Post
Reconstructed row house at Snake River Fur Post
Archaeologists at work at Snake River Fur Post
Archaeologists at work at Snake River Fur Post
The Snake River Fur Post as it appeared during John Sayer's tenure as partner in the early nineteenth century. Drawn by David Geister, ca. 2000.
The Snake River Fur Post as it appeared during John Sayer's tenure as partner in the early nineteenth century. Drawn by David Geister, ca. 2000.
North West Company musket stock
North West Company musket stock
Aerial view of reconstructed Snake River Fur Post in winter
Aerial view of reconstructed Snake River Fur Post in winter
Interpreters at Snake River Fur Post
Interpreters at Snake River Fur Post
Voyageur interpreters at Snake River Fur Post
Voyageur interpreters at Snake River Fur Post
Row house interior
Row house interior
Snake River Fur Post
Snake River Fur Post

Turning Point

In 1804, looking to expand their trading power and compete with their rival the XY Company, the North West Company sends John Sayer into the territory of the Snake River Ojibwe to build a new trading post.

Chronology

mid-1600s

The Ojibwe encounter French travelers for the first time and allow them to begin trading in their homelands. The Ojibwe establish themselves as powerful players in the Great Lakes fur trade.

1763

The British take control of New France (French Canada). British fur companies move into the European American side of the fur trade, though many voyageurs are still ethnically French. The Ojibwe establish trade alliances with the British.

1779

The North West Company is incorporated at its headquarters in Montreal.

1803

Through the Louisiana Purchase, the United States acquires more than 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River, including much of present-day Minnesota. British Canadian trading companies, however, remain in the region.

summer 1804

The Montreal-based North West Company sends trader John Sayer to Ginebig-ziibi (Snake River) to establish a trading post with the local Ojibwe.

1804

North West Company employees finish building the Snake River Fur Post at a site 1.5 miles west of present-day Pine City on November 20.

1805

The North West Company leaves the post and returns to Fort St. Louis. Its buildings burn and fall into ruin over the next century.

1963

The Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) confirms the former site of the post.

1966

MNHS buys the site, and the Minnesota Legislature contributes funds to pay for the reconstruction of the post.

1970

Connor’s Fur Post opens to the public as a historic site. It is later called the North West Company Snake River Fur Post, and then the North West Fur Post, and then the Snake River Fur Post.