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 understood and governed travel. Parties journeying from Mackinaw to Illinois or the Mississippi would hold to the western coast of Lake Michigan, for here they were favored by the winds, and proceeded southward by the Fox–Wisconsin portage or the Chicago–Illinois portage. In returning they would, under ordinary circumstances, choose the Kankakee–St. Joseph portage which would obviate the necessity of stemming the Illinois or Wisconsin and crossing Lake Michigan. The more direct route to the head of the Maumee was not discovered or appreciated until later. Thus traffic, on the lakes at least, was not on the bee line that it is today, and thus it was that portage paths and straits were famous meeting-places and camping spots. Straits, in many cases, may be classed with portages; often a portage was necessary only in one direction. On the rivers the same portages were usually the routes of parties ascending and descending, but on such a stream as the St. Lawrence