Interesting article, there are historical documents describing how native settlements used to be connected by trail networks. Settlement locations changed frequently as the land's capacity to grow corn, squash and beans became exhausted, maybe after less than ten years, and so new trails were always being made.
The big one was the Toronto portage running from the Humber at Bloor to Holland Marsh connecting to Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, with historians describing it like a highway with all the fur trade traffic going on during the height of trade. An easier portage also started at the Rouge river further to the east and joined onto the previous one further north.
An interesting place to visit is Fort Rouille at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) where the French built a palisaded trading post to intercept the flow of furs before they could get to the British further south in NY. It was partially destroyed with Wolfe's victory and the fall of Quebec in 1759. The ruins remained in place at that spot on the Toronto waterfront for 120 years and were a point of interest for Toronto residents to visit on day trips after 1790 when Gov. Simcoe arrived to develop Toronto into a town.
When the CNE grounds were established about 1880, the fort ruins were demolished with no thought of preservation or documentation. But an inscribed boulder was set there at that spot and later a more formal obelisk was erected by the Toronto Historical Society. Today the words carved into the boulder are still there but the weathering has made them almost illegible, although with a piece of chalk they can still be made out. The actual words written in 1880 are more easily read on a historical plaque.
It's great to look out over the lake at that site and imagine the canoes coming down the Toronto Portage, filled with furs, and paddled on Lake Ontario to trade with the French during a very different time and landscape.
