The Lake Superior
fishing tradition: Prior to Eurpoean contact, Ojibwe tribal fishermen used
large birchbark canoes and gill nets constructed from twisted and knotted
strands of willow bark to harvest fish from Lake Superior. As Europeans
entered the Great Lakes region, the Ojibwe used fish to trade with French and
English outposts. Fish soon became one of the mainstays in the diets of the
early fur traders. Some of the earliest visitors enjoying Lake Superior
whitefish, lake trout, and lake herring included: Etienne Brule (1620),
Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Groseilliers (1654), Fr. Claude Allouez
(1665), and Sieur DuLuth (1679). In 1843 the American Fur Company began a
fish processing enterprise at La Pointe (Madeline Island) and shipped four to
five thousand barrels of fish that year on the John Jacob Astor, a 111 ton schooner, and
other sailing vessels.
In the late 1800's and early 1900's Lake
Superior's commercial fishery experienced rapid growth with the arrival of
new immigrants and railroads. In 1885, the Alfred Booth Packing Company
expanded into Bayfield (Wisconsin) and employed several hundred men to catch
2.5 million pounds of fish from the waters of the Apostle Islands. Alfred
Booth then formed a powerful monopoly, establishing fish processing
operations in Sault Sainte Marie and Whitefish Point (Michigan), Duluth
(Minnesota), and Port Arthur (Ontario).