1749 - Up a Creek and Building a Road

The Céloron's expedition finally reached Lake Erie and we travelled along the southern shore in our canoes. We were looking for Chautauqua Creek. Chautauqua Creek drains into Lake Erie. It is connected to Chautauqua Lake which feeds into the major rivers such as the Allegheny River and the Ohio River.

Chautauqua Creek is based in western New York just east of modern day Erie, Pennsylvania.

See that purple dot? We had to build a road and carry our canoes to that dot.

That Sucked.

Note about the importance of Rivers in 1749

In 1749 Ohio Country there were no roads, trails, highways, reliable maps or GPS. Basically, the only way to travel without getting hopelessly lost was to follow rivers. As such, the rivers and the Great Lakes acted as the modern interstate freeways of today.

Chautauqua Creek

If you look at Chautauqua Creek you can see it is too dinky for canoes to travel up it. As such we had to build a primitive road (on an old Indian trail) from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake. Part of this old road still survives in the 21st century. (It was weird to see the road in 2005 and then travel back in time to help build this road).

A Modern Day sign showing where we built that road all those years ago.

Finally we arrived at Chautauqua Lake! We relaxed at the lake for a few weeks as we were all exhausted from building that stupid road.

Morning breaks at Chautauqua Lake

We did some fishing and caught plenty of Muskellunge fish. I snuck this camera from the 21st century and took a picture of the lake during morning.

Dinner at Chautauqua Lake

1749 - Paddling up the Niagara River

After a long journey along the north shores of Lake Ontario, we (the Céloron's expedition) are now headed south on the Niagara River to Lake Erie. The Niagara River is unusual in that it flows from the south to the north. It sucks that we always seem to be paddling against the river.

Half way up the river, we ran into the Niagara Falls. While the Falls are quite beautiful, we obviously could not paddle our canoes up the Falls. So we had to carry these HEAVY canoes around the Falls. While exploration may seem exciting looking back from the 21st century, in reality it is just exhausting work. The history books never mention being constantly wet, tired and being bit by mosquitoes.

Had to carry our canoes around this. Ugh.

1749 - Reached Lake Ontario!

After a long (and wet) journey up the St Lawrence River, we (the Céloron's expedition) have finally reached Lake Ontario. Met some indians along the way, but otherwise it is just wilderness.

Modern Map of Lake Onario. We plan to travel along the north shore.

Shore of Lake Ontario