The early French traders and explorers who came to the upper lakes naturally ascended their affluents, and in this way La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin and others crossed the portages beyond Lake Michigan to the tributaries of the Mississippi. They came to Green Bay on the west side of Lake Michigan, ascended the Fox River and crossed over to the Wisconsin River. Southward from the Upper Michigan Peninsula and westward of the lower peninsula of that State spreads the broad expanse of Lake Michigan, stretching from Mackinac and Green Bay down to Chicago. Its western shore is the State of Wisconsin, extending northward to Lake Superior. When the French explorers came along and floated down its chief river, an affluent of the Mississippi, the latter making the western boundary of the State, they found the Indian name of the stream to be a word which, according to the pronunciation, they spelled in their early narratives "Ouisconsing" and "Misconsin," and it finally came out in the present form of Wisconsin, thus naming the State. The original meaning was the "wild, rushing red water," from the hue given by the pine and tamarack forests. La Salle coasted in his canoe all along the western shore of Lake Michigan, from Green Bay down to Chicago, and crossed over to the Mississippi. The traders established various settlements on that shore which have grown into active cities, and the principal one, eighty-five miles north of Chicago, is Milwaukee, its name derived from the Indian Mannawahkie, meaning the "good land." A broad harbor, indented several miles from the lake, was the nucleus of the city, at the mouth of Milwaukee River, which receives two tributaries within the town, and thus adds to the facilities for dockage, while extensive breakwaters protect the harbor entrance from lake storms.