Florantha Thompson Sproat – La Pointe and Beyond

Bob Mackreth talks about the life and times of Florantha Sproat and her adventures at La Pointe on Madeline Island and beyond.

When a young lady from a cultured New England background came to La Pointe in the final years of the fur trade, it seemed unlikely that she’d do well on the frontier. Florantha Sproat didn’t take long to prove doubters mistaken, however. Astonishingly, Florantha’s time at La Pointe was just the first chapter in a remarkable life that would take her from the Lake Superior country to gold rush California and the peaks of the Sierra Nevada.