Fort Saint Charles was a French fur-trade post established in 1732 on Lake of the Woods by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, as part of his westward expansion from Lake Superior into the interior trade network. A substantial fortified outpost sustained by local resources, it became central to one of the most tragic episodes of that venture when Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye, Father Jean-Pierre Aulneau, and nineteen voyageurs were killed by Dakota attackers in 1736. Abandoned in 1749, the site later vanished, then was rediscovered through archaeological and historical work and eventually reconstructed as the principal memorial to the post and its tragedy.