It should be noted here that the portage landing at 134th St is half a mile northeast of the Calumet Junction, also that any place mentioned near the Calumet river or lake is a distance from the water line, to-day. On the south it is two miles to the sandridge carrying Trail P where implements and weapons of the stone age can be found. Furthermore, that this route skirts the mouth of Calumet lake by one mile and a half. The Grand Calumet river in this distance was not used by the early canoe man but avoided as a dangerous cane-brake lined with bullrushes and tall grasses, where the river bed could not be located, there being no river banks, rightly described by Mr Hagar as a "new formed river."
Jos. Phillips a hunter and trapper at the Indian Ridge, Hyde Lake in 1851, now living at 134th St and Ave K, Hegewisch, says that "Fifty years ago, no one would dare go through there, that it was customary to pass around by the portage trails same as the Indians." The Wolf lake portage trail from Hegewisch led one mile southwest to Buffalo Ave and 138th St. "At Hammond" Mr Phillips says "there were always plenty Indians." The grand Calumet river, from here east, also furnished canoe passage nearly half way to St. Joseph Michigan.
The several Indian villages in these marshes were all located along the canoe routes or portage trails of which they form a part the route simply passing from one to the other and together we have one of the links of the great highway leading from the Illinois river to the "Great lake."