Frog Portage
Frog Portage
marks the connection between the Churchill River and The Sturgeon
Weir, which in turn connects to the Saskatchewan. It is part of an ancient
travel route that has been used for thousands of years. Frog Portage acquired
strategic significance in the late 1700s and early 1800s when competition
between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company was intense.
NWC trader, Jack Frobisher, built Fort du Traite at Frog Portage in 1774 to intercept the flow of furs from the Dene who used to take their furs down the Churchill to the HBC post at Fort Churchill. Fort du Traite, said to have been built by Louis Primeau for the Frobishers, might have been the first built on the Churchill. It was abandoned in the 1790s, at which time the HBC built a post there.
Archaeological research at Frog Portage has uncovered evidence of camps up to 1000 years old, as well as artifacts from both the fur trade and more contemporary periods. However, the site of Fort du Traite has not yet been found.
According to Alexander Mackenzie's journal, Frog Portage, or, "Portage of the Stretched Frog Skin", derives its name from the Cree, who stretched and dried the skin of a frog and hung it up at the portage as a joke. The stretched frog was meant to mock another Aboriginal group's ignorance in hunting beaver.
It has been known as Frog Portage ever since.