As the water-parting between the basin of the St. Lawrence and that of the Mississippi is hardly marked by any height of land, so the divide between the chain of lakes which feed the St. Lawrence and the more westerly waters, of which Lake Winnipeg is the centre, is a slight rise of ground which it is difficult to distinguish on the maps. A low range of hills runs round the western end of Lake Superior, at the highest point not more than 1,000 feet above the level of the lake. These uplands separate the tributaries of Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence from the feeders of Lake Winnipeg. There were two routes across the divide, one leaving Lake Superior at Thunder Bay, near the point where Port Arthur now stands, and following for a short distance the present line of the Canadian Pacific Railway; {213} the other a little further south, leaving the lake at or near Pigeon river, and going westward along the present boundary line between Canada and the United States. On this latter route was the Grand Portage, by which the _voyageurs_ crossed the water-parting at about sixty miles distance from Lake Superior, and reached Rainy Lake. Rainy Lake drains into the Lake of the Woods, and the Lake of the Woods drains into Lake Winnipeg. This last great lake, fed by the Saskatchewan, the Assiniboine, the Red River, and many other rivers and lakes, finds its outlet by the Nelson river to Hudson Bay, and a chain of posts carried from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg would tend to divert the western fur trade from Hudson Bay to the St. Lawrence. [Sidenote: _Verendrye's journeys and forts._] [Sidenote: _His sons near the Rocky mountains._]