Sault St Marie--Our landlord is a very strange being. It appears that
he has been annoyed by some traveller, who has published a work in which
he has found fault with the accommodations at Sault St Marie, and
spoken very disrespectfully of our host's beds and bed-furniture. I
have never read the work, but I am so well aware how frequently
travellers fill up their pages with fleas, and "such small gear," that I
presume the one in question was short of matter to furnish out his book;
yet it was neither just nor liberal on his part to expect at Sault St
Marie, where, perhaps, not five travellers arrive in the course of a
year, the same accommodations as at New York. The bedsteads certainly
were a little rickety, but every thing was very clean and comfortable.
The house was not an inn, nor, indeed, did it pretend to be one, but the
fare was good and well cooked, and you were waited upon by the host's
two pretty modest daughters--not only pretty, but well-informed girls;
and, considering that this village is the Ultima Thule of this portion
of America, I think that a traveller might have been very well content
with things as they were. In two instances, I found in the log-houses
of this village complete editions of Lord Byron's works.
Sault St Marie contains, perhaps, fifty houses, mostly built of logs,
and has a palisade put up to repel any attack of the Indians.
There are two companies of soldiers quartered here. The rapids from
which the village takes its name are just above it; they are not strong
or dangerous, and the canoes descend them twenty times a day. At the
foot of the rapids the men are constantly employed in taking the white
fish in scoop nets, as they attempt to force their way up into Lake
Superior. The majority of the inhabitants here are half-breeds. It is
remarkable that the females generally improve, and the males degenerate,
from the admixture of blood. Indian wives are here preferred to white,
and perhaps with reason--they make the best wives for poor men; they
labour hard, never complain, and a day of severe toil is amply
recompensed by a smile from their lord and master in the evening. They
are always faithful and devoted, and very sparing of their talk, all
which qualities are considered as recommendations in this part of the
world.
It is remarkable, that although the Americans treat the negro with
contumely, they have a respect for the red Indian: a well-educated
half-bred Indian is not debarred from entering into society; indeed,
they are generally received with great attention. The daughter of a
celebrated Indian chief brings heraldry into the family, for the Indians
are as proud of their descent (and with good reason) as we, in Europe,
are of ours. The Randolph family in Virginia still boast of their
descent from Pocahontas, the heroine of one of the most remarkable
romances in real life which was ever heard of.
The whole of this region appears to be incapable of cultivation, and
must remain in its present state, perhaps, for centuries to come. The
chief produce is from the lakes; trout and white fish are caught in
large quantities, salted down, and sent to the west and south. At
Mackinaw alone they cure about two thousand barrels, which sell for ten
dollars the barrel; at the Sault, about the same quantity; and on Lake
Superior, at the station of the American Fur Company, they have
commenced the fishing, to lessen the expenses of the establishment, and
they now salt down about four thousand barrels; but this traffic is
still in its infancy, and will become more profitable as the west
becomes more populous. Be it here observed that, although the Canadians
have the same rights and the same capabilities of fishing, I do not
believe that one barrel is cured on the Canadian side. As the American
fish is prohibited in England, it might really become an article of
exportation from the Canadas to a considerable amount.
There is another source of profit, which is the collecting of the maple
sugar; and this staple, if I may use the term, is rapidly increasing.
At an average, the full grown maple-tree will yield about five pounds of
sugar each tapping, and, if carefully treated, will last forty years.
All the State of Michigan is supplied from this quarter with this sugar,
which is good in quality, and refines well. At Mackinaw they receive
about three hundred thousand pounds every year. It may be collected in
any quantity from their vast wildernesses of forests, and although the
notion may appear strange, it is not impossible that one day the
Northern sugar may supersede that of the Tropics. The island of St
Joseph, which I have mentioned, is covered with large maple trees, and
they make a great quantity upon that spot alone.
I was amused by a reply given me by an American in office here. I asked
how much his office was worth, and his answer was six hundred dollars,
besides _stealings_. This was, at all events, frank and honest; in
England the word would have been softened down to perquisites. I
afterwards found that it was a common expression in the States to say a
place was worth so much besides cheatage.
In all this country, from Mackinaw to the Sault, hay is very scarce;
and, during the short summer season, the people go twenty or thirty
miles in their canoes to any known patch of prairie or grass land to
collect it. Nevertheless, they are very often obliged, during the
winter, to feed their cattle upon fish, and, strange to say, they
acquire a taste for it. You will see the horses and cows disputing for
the offal; and our landlord told me that he has often witnessed a
particular horse wait very quietly while they were landing the fish from
the canoes, watch his opportunity, dart in, steal one, and _run away
with it in his mouth_.
A mutiny among our lazzaroni of half-breeds, they refuse to work today,
because they are tired, they say, and we are obliged to procure others.
Carried our canoe over the pasturage into the canal, and in five minutes
were on the vast inland sea of Lake Superior. The waters of this lake
are, if possible, more transparent than those of the Huron, or rather
the variety and bright colours of the pebbles and agates which lie at
the bottom, make them appear so. The appearance of the coast, and the
growth of timber, are much the same as on Lake Huron, until you arrive
at Gros Cape, a bold promontory, about three hundred feet high. We
ascended this cape, to have a full view of the expanse of water: this
was a severe task, as it was nearly perpendicular, and we were forced to
cling from tree to tree to make the ascent. In addition to this
difficulty, we were unremittingly pursued by the mosquitoes, which
blinded us so as to impede our progress, being moreover assisted in
their malevolent attacks by a sort of sand-fly, that made triangular
incisions behind our ears, exactly like a small leech bite, from which
the blood trickled down two or three inches as soon as the little wretch
let go his hold. This variety of stinging made us almost mad, and we
descended quite exhausted, the blood trickling down our faces and necks.
We threw off our clothes, and plunged into the lake; the water was too
cold; the agates at the bottom cut our feet severely, and thus were we
phlebotomised from head to foot.
There is a singular geological feature at this cape; you do not perceive
it until you have forced your way through a belt of firs, which grow at
the bottom and screen it from sight. It is a ravine in which the rocks
are pouring down from the top to the bottom, all so equal in size, and
so arranged, as to wear the appearance of a cascade of stones; and when,
half blinded by the mosquitoes, you look upon them, they appear as if
they are actually in motion, and falling down in one continued stream.
We embarked again, and after an hour's paddling landed upon a small
island, where was the tomb of an Indian chief or warrior. It was in a
beautiful spot, surrounded by the wild rose, blue peas, and campanellas.
The kinnakinnee, or weed which the Indians smoke as tobacco, grew
plentifully about it. The mound of earth was surrounded by a low
palisade, about four feet wide and seven feet long, and at the head of
it was the warrior's pole, with eagle feathers, and notches denoting the
number of scalps he had taken from the enemy.
The Hudson Bay and American Fur Companies both have stations on Lake
Superior, on their respective sides of the lake, and the Americans have
a small schooner which navigates it. There is one question which the
traveller cannot help asking himself as he surveys the vast mass of
water, into which so many rivers pour their contributions, which is--In
what manner is all this accumulation of water carried off? Except by a
very small evaporation in the summer time, and the outlet at Sault St
Marie, where the water which escapes is not much more than equal to two
or three of the rivers which feed the lake, there is no apparent means
by which the water is carried off. The only conclusion that can be
arrived at is, that when the lake rises above a certain height, as the
soil around is sandy and porous, the surplus waters find their way
through it; and such I believe to be the case.
We saw no bears. They do not come down to the shores, (or travel, as
they term it here,) until the huckleberries are ripe. We were told that
a month later there would be plenty of them. It is an ascertained fact,
that the bears from this region migrate to the west every autumn, but it
is not known when they return. They come down to the eastern shores of
the Lakes Superior and Huron, swim the lakes and rivers from island to
island, never deviating from their course, till they pass through by
Wisconsin to the Missisippi. Nothing stops them; the sight of a canoe
will not prevent their taking the water; and the Indians in the River
St Marie have been known to kill fifteen in one day. It is singular
that the bears on the other side of the Missisippi are said to migrate
to the east, exactly in the contrary direction. Perhaps the Missisippi
is their fashionable watering-place.
A gathering storm induced us to return, instead of continuing our
progress on the lake. A birch canoe in a gale of wind on Lake Superior,
would not be a very insurable risk. On our return, we found our
half-breeds very penitent, for had we not taken them back, they would
have stood a good chance of wintering there. But we had had advice as
to the treatment of these lazy gluttonous scoundrels, who swallowed long
pieces of raw pork the whole of the day, and towards evening were, from
repletion, hanging their heads over the sides of the canoe and quite
ill. They had been regaled with pork and whisky going up; we gave them
salt fish and a broomstick by way of variety on their return, and they
behaved very well under the latter fare.
We started again down with the stream, and the first night took up our
quarters on a prairie spot, where they had been making hay, which was
lying in cocks about us. To have a soft bed we carried quantities into
our tent, forgetting that we disturbed the mosquitoes who had gone to
bed in the hay. We smoked the tent to drive them out again; but in
smoking the tent we set fire to the hay, and it ended in a
conflagration. We were burnt out, and had to re-pitch our tent.
I was sauntering by the side of the river when I heard a rustling in the
grass, and perceived a garter snake, an elegant and harmless little
creature, about a foot and a half long. It had a small toad in its
mouth, which it had seized by the head: but it was much too large for
the snake to swallow, without leisure and preparation. I was amused at
the precaution, I may say invention of the toad, to prevent its being
swallowed: it had inflated itself, till it was as round as a bladder,
and upon this, issue was joined--the snake would not let go, the toad
would not be swallowed. I lifted up the snake by the tail and threw
them three or four yards into the river. The snake rose to the surface,
as majestic as the great sea serpent in miniature, carrying his head
well out of the water, with the toad still in his mouth, reminding me of
Caesar with his Commentaries. He landed close to my feet; I threw him
in again, and this time he let go the toad, which remained floating and
inanimate an the water; but after a time he discharged his superfluous
gas, and made for the shore; while the snake, to avoid me, swam away
down with the current.
The next morning it blew hard, and as we opened upon Lake Huron, we had
to encounter a heavy sea; fortunately, the wind was fair for the island
of Mackinaw, or we might have been delayed for some days. As soon as we
were in the Lake we made sail, having fifty-six miles to run before it
was dark. The gale increased, but the canoe flew over the water,
skimming it like a sea bird. It was beautiful, but not quite so
pleasant, to watch it, as, upon the least carelessness on the part of
the helmsman, it would immediately have filled. As it was, we shipped
some heavy seas, but the blankets at the bottom being saturated, gave us
the extra ballast which we required. Before we were clear of the
islands, we were joined by a whole fleet of Indian canoes, with their
dirty blankets spread to the storm, running, as we were, for Mackinaw,
being on their return from Maniton Islands, where they had congregated
to receive presents from the Governor of Upper Canada. Their canoes
were, most of them, smaller than ours, which had been built for speed,
but they were much higher in the gunnel. It was interesting to behold
so many hundreds of beings trusting themselves to such fragile
conveyances, in a heavy gale and running sea; but the harder it blew,
the faster we went; and at last, much to my satisfaction, we found
ourselves in smooth water again, alongside of the landing wharf at
Mackinaw. I had had some wish to see a freshwater gale of wind, but in
a birch canoe I never wish to try the experiment again.