Michel Charlebois wrote: > Think of the first discoverers and settlers that came to populate North > America. They where able to cross the continent relying almost only on their > own effort. If they had to construct pathway for their bicycle they could > still be at it. Those who crossed North America by canoe did construct their own pathways. There are still remnants of the original portage paths in many parts of Canada. This past summer I had the great fortune to go paddling for a day with a local professor of botany who specializes in trees and forests. We paddled over to examine a prairie - on examining it, he declared that it was most likely the result of many generations of prescribed burns by the local First Nations (it was on a local reserve). He then told me that many of the other prairie areas here in Ontario (where boreal forest is the norm) are the result of a history of prescribed burns and that these prairies were used as portage routes. It is a lot easier to burn off a part of a forest and let a prairie grow than to cut a swath through a forest and maintain a road. The network of such prairie patches form a canoe pathway from the St. Laurence/Ottawa river valleys through the Great Lakes and on to the west past Lake Superior. These routes were the highways of the past and were manmade. The first Europeans who explored North America followed the routes already constructed by the First Nations. If you look at the experiences of the fur traders, explorers like Mackenzie or Lewis and Clark, they all relied on First Nations guides and knowledge of exiting routes. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Dec 13 2006 - 09:05:27 PST
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