![]() ![]() Today we celebrate the vital role of John Beargrease in the early history of the North Shore of Lake Superior through the annual running of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. With his successful delivery, the population and economy stabilized and permanent towns made their mark on the landscape. John Beargrease himself was best known for his winter travels by dogsled. Through the seasons, the Beargrease brothers used a variety of methods to transport the mail including canoes, horses and large boats. ![]() Recognizing the opportunity, John and his brothers picked up the job of delivering the mail by simply tossing a mailbag or two into existing packs.įor almost twenty years, between 18, John Beargrease and his brothers delivered the mail between Two Harbors and Grand Marais. John Beargrease and his brothers were avid hunters and trappers and made regular trips to the region along their well-established Lake Shore Trail trap line. This lead to limited communication with the outside world at a time when most other parts of the country were receiving regular mail delivery. Lake Superior’s North Shore was then and is now, subject to severe temperature changes, heavy rainfall and violent storms and travel in the area was extremely difficult despite the influx of settlers. They survived through their traditional native practices of hunting, fishing and trapping.īy the time John Beargrease was in his twenties, the North Shore had become home to numerous small settlements of fishing families which had planted themselves in the many coves of Lake Superior’s rocky shoreline. The family lived in a traditional wigwam on the edge of the first settlement on Minnesota’s North Shore Beaver Bay. John Beargrease was born in Beaver Bay, Minnesota in 1858, the son of an Anishinabe Chief, Moquabimetem. John Beargrease was pivotal in the development of the entire north shore and the communities who have maintained their foothold there over the past century. ![]()
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