At the head of the Maumee--the "Miami river of Lake Erie"--a portage path led to the Wabash. It began on the left bank of the St. Mary River, a short distance above its junction with the St. Joseph, and ran eight miles to Little River, the first branch of the Wabash. This route from the Lakes to the Mississippi, at first of least importance, became finally the most important of the five great French passage ways southwest. It was discovered to be the shortest route from the capital of New France to the Mississippi and Illinois settlements and has been appropriately called "the Indian Appian Way." The importance of this route in the history of the Old Northwest has been effectively presented by Elbert Jay Benton.[67]
The voyager's canoes followed the Ottawa river from Montreal, then by portage to Lake Nipissing, and to Georgian bay, an eastern arm of Lake Huron, and thence by the northern lakes to Green bay, the Fox, and by portage to the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. It was the most natural route because in every way it was the line of least resistance. It avoided the near approaches to the Iroquois Indian limits and led directly to the numerous Indian haunts around the greater lakes. As the objective point for the westward expeditions was gradually moved farther south into the Mississippi basin, shorter routes across the territory, later known as the Old Northwest, were used. The Wisconsin portage soon yielded in point of frequency of use to those at the South end of Lake Michigan. The route up the Illinois river and by portage into the Chicago river and Lake Michigan was followed by Joliet and Marquette on their return from the discovery of the Mississippi. A few years later La Salle followed the coast of Lake Michigan to the St. Joseph river and up that stream, thence by a portage to the Kankakee, and so again to the usual destination--points on the Illinois and the Mississippi.
"About this time, in the course of the evolution of new routes leading to the Mississippi, occurred the first use of the Wabash river by white explorers. This stream was occasionally reached in the earliest period by leaving Lake Michigan on the St. Joseph river and then by a short portage to the headwaters of a northern branch of the Wabash, but the more important way to reach it was by the 'Miami river of Lake Erie' and a short portage. Of the five great portage routes,[68] this was the last one to come into general use by the whites.... Many have tried to trace La Salle's voyage of 1670 by the Wabash river. Joliet's map of 1674, which locates La Salle's route by way of Lake Erie and the Wabash, has been used in support of this contention. But the route laid down is clearly a later interpolation and adds nothing directly to the argument. It is, however, most significant that within a few years La Salle had become in some manner fully aware of this Wabash route and the advantages it offered. During the years that he was in command at Ft. Frontenac, he appears to have been evolving great schemes for appeasing the Iroquois and for opening up an easy channel of trade to the Mississippi Valley by the Maumee and Wabash; but by 1682 he seems to have temporarily abandoned this plan, 'because,' he says, 'I could no longer go to the Illinois but by the Lakes Huron and Illinois, as the other routes which I have discovered by the head of Lake Erie and by the southern coast of the same, have become too dangerous by frequent encounters with the Iroquois who are always on that shore.' La Salle's description of the territory between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan indicates a familiarity with this region scarcely possible save from personal observation. In a letter written November 9, 1680, he says, 'There is at the end of Lake Erie ten leagues below the strait a river by which we could shorten the route to the Illinois very much. It is navigable to canoes to within two leagues of the route now in use.'[69]... his [La Salle's] representations were the first to direct the attention of the French to the regions south and west of Lake Erie."[70]