Sakiwasipi

Sakiwasipi, the Miami name for the St Joseph River, means “outlet river.” Flowing through southern Michigan and northern Indiana to Lake Michigan, it formed part of an extensive Indigenous waterway network. A short portage near South Bend connected it to the Kankakee and Illinois rivers, opening a route toward the Mississippi. Another portage linked its headwaters to the Maumee watershed and Lake Erie.

In 1675 Indigenous guides led Jacques Marquette along this route to Lake Michigan. Four years later the French explorer La Salle built Fort Miami at the river mouth and travelled upstream to the Kankakee portage. The French established Fort St Joseph in 1691 near the crossing of the Old Sauk Trail, joining a network already used by Indigenous travellers and traders.