route went up the east side of Lake of the Woods and over the Rat Portage (Kenora) to the Winnipeg. The Winnipeg River was notorious for its many portages and décharges. Three were known as the Dales, Portage de l'Isle, and La Rivière Blanche, named for its white water. This last was the scene of many deaths. Its seven portages were all visible from the same spot. After the last portage, at Manitou Rapids, the river opened out into the Bas de la Rivière and then the lake. About halfway up the river, the English River led to Fort Albany on James Bay. In 1679 Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, reached the western tip of Lake Superior. In 1688 Jacques de Noyon went from Kaministiquia as far as Rainy Lake and perhaps beyond. He seems to have been followed by coureurs des bois, who may have gotten as far as Lake Winnipeg. They left no records, but the English on Hudson Bay heard reports of the coureurs in 1718 if not earlier. In 1717 Zacharie Robutel de La Noue tried and failed to penetrate the area. Opening of the land west of Lake Superior by a European is credited to La Vérendrye in 1731–1743. In 1731 his men built a post on Rainy Lake. In 1732 he built Fort Saint Charles on Lake of the Woods. In 1733 one of his sons almost reached Lake Winnipeg but was blocked by ice. In 1734 two explorers reported that they had reached the south end of Lake Winnipeg, and La Vérendrye ordered the first Fort Maurepas to be built there soon after. By 1743 the French had reached the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan rivers and had sent explorers to present-day North Dakota and, probably, Wyoming in what is now the United States. All this drew trade away from the Hudson's Bay Company. After the British conquest of Canada as part of its victory in the Seven Years' War, French traders were largely replaced by "pedlars" (as the HBC people called them) from Montreal. The pedlars soon formed the North West Company, which was capitalized by both English and Scots. From about 1775 the HBC began building competing posts in the interior, including one on the Rainy River. Competition ended in 1821 when the two companies merged and trade was diverted to York Factory on Hudson Bay. Trade was also diverted south as population