October 26, 2009, 2:37 pm
Jerry Disterhaft thinks historians have shortchanged the 1673
exploration by Father Marquette and Louis Joliet of the Fox River
Valley on their way across Wisconsin. The 60-year-old Princeton-area
man, whose grandfather was a fur trapper years ago on the Upper Fox
River where he lives, hopes that soon will change
Disterhaft,
who dons period clothing on weekends from spring to fall while giving
trips in a 28-foot voyageur canoe, is among the people and
organizations pushing to attract a national designation for the
Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Parkway, a stretch of 275 miles that runs
diagonally across the state.
Supporters
seek to draw attention to and rekindle the historical role of the Fox
and Wisconsin rivers that provided early settlers an important route
from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and beyond. In an era
when rivers served as the primary transportation highways, they played
a key role in opening the western portion of North America and spurred
European settlement in Wisconsin.
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