Fort St. Charles
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Fort St. Charles was a secure trading post constructed in 1732 by La Vérendrye's nephew, Christopher Dufrost de La Jemeraye and his eldest son Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye. When built near the border of present day Manitoba, Canada and Minnesota, USA, it represented the most northwesterly settlement of New France (Canada) in North America.
The fort followed the construction of a small fort, Fort St. Pierre on Rainy River the previous fall. St Charles became an important post for the Vérendrye's. From here they explored a large section of mid-continent North America, constructed other forts and conducted their economic activity of fur trading.
It was from Fort St. Charles that Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye with the Jesuit priest Father Jean-Pierre Aulneau and nineteen other French-Canadians departed on June 6, 1736 and headed for Fort Michilimackinac. On a small island only a few kilometres from the fort, the whole party was massacred. When the remains were discovered, the heads of the nineteen voyageurs and the bodies of Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye and Jean-Pierre Aulneau were brought back to the fort and buried under the altar stone. These remains helped to confirm the location of the original fort in the early 20th century.
A replica of Fort St. Charles, built in 1950, is situated on Magnussen's Island, right atop the old fort, at the mouth of Angle Inlet. This is part of the Northwest Angle on Lake of the Woods and is part of Minnesota. The original fort was likely on mainland and the location became an island when the lake levels were raised by control structures on the Winnipeg River.
