PIERRE ESPRIT RADISSON AND MÉDARD CHOUART EXPLORE LAKE SUPERIOR
Who were the Coureurs de bois.--Radisson's Experiences as a Prisoner
among the Iroquois.--He plays the Indian Warrior.--Escapes to the
Dutch.--Makes his Way back to Canada.--He and his Brother-in-law set
out for the Upper Lakes.--Fight with Iroquois.--Storm an Indian
Fort.--Reach Lake Superior.--"The Pictured Rocks."--Keweenaw
Point.--Long Overland Journey.--Summer and Feasting.--Winter and
Famine.--Feasting again.--Fine Ducking.--Start for Home.--Reach
Montreal with Great Fleet of Canoes.
The early history of New France owes its romantic interest to the
activity of four classes of men. Daring explorers, such as Cartier,
Champlain, Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, plunged into the wilderness,
penetrated remote regions, made great discoveries, and extended French
influence and French trade as far to the west as the Mississippi and to
the northeast as far as Hudson Bay. French Catholic missionaries said
mass and preached their {188} faith in the heart of the forest primeval
and at lonely posts on the shores of the Great Lakes. Able and
brilliant Governors, such as Champlain and Frontenac, built forts at
commanding points on the inland waters, and ruled, in a fashion, an
area vastly greater than that of France itself.
Of these three classes of men and their achievements we have had
examples. We come now to speak of a fourth class who exercised a
powerful influence on the destinies of New France. If we remember that
the material object of French activity in America was _furs_, we shall
easily understand that the men who were busied in the fur-trade were a
very important part of the scanty population. They were of two kinds.
There were merchants who "kept store" at Quebec, Montreal, Three
Rivers, and other trading-posts, bartering their goods to the Indians
for peltries. These were brought to them in large quantities in the
early summer, when the ice had broken up, and fleets of canoes
descended the St. Lawrence laden with skins. Then there was amazing
stir at the sleepy little posts on the great river. Painted savages,
howling and screeching, mostly half-drunk, swarmed about the stations,
and at night the sky was red with the glare of their {189} fires.
There was an enormous profit in the traffic, for the Indians had no
idea of the cheapness of the goods which they took in exchange for
their furs, nor of the high prices which these brought in Europe. It
is no wonder that governors and other high officials were charged with
having a secret interest in this very lucrative trade, and, for that
reason, winking at violations of the King's orders regulating it. Even
Jesuit missionaries sometimes were thought by their opponents to be
more eager to share this money-making traffic than to win souls.
But a more numerous class than these stationary traders were the
so-called _coureurs de bois_, or wood-rangers. These were wild fellows
whom the love of adventure lured into the wilderness not less strongly
than the love of gain. They roamed the forests, paddled the streams
and lakes, hunted and trapped, trafficked with the Indians wherever and
whenever they pleased, often in violation of express orders, and
smuggled their forbidden furs into the trading-posts. Sometimes they
spent whole seasons, even years, among the savages, taking to wife red
women. Lawless fellows as these were, they helped mightily to extend
French influence and subdue the continent {190} to the white man's
rule. Daring explorers, they penetrated remote regions, hobnobbed with
the natives, and brought back accounts of what they had seen.
One of their leaders, Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, whose name is borne by
the city of Duluth, in Minnesota, was a conspicuous figure in the wild
frontier life. He carried on a vast fur-trade, held his rough
followers well in hand, led a small army of them in fighting the
battles of his country, and even appeared at the French court at
Versailles.
The half-breed children of these _coureurs_, growing up in Indian
wigwams, but full of pride in their French blood, became a strong link
binding together the two races in friendly alliance and deciding the
Indians, in time of war, to paint themselves and put on their feathers
for the French rather than for the English. Therefore any account of
pioneer Frenchmen should include a sketch of the _coureurs de bois_.
To illustrate this type, one is here taken as an example who was born
in France, and who was a gentleman by birth and education, but whose
insatiable love of adventure led him to take up the _coureur's_ life,
with all its vicissitudes. Withal, he {191} was a man of note in his
day, played no inconsiderable part in opening up the wilderness, and
suggested the formation of that vast monopoly, the Hudson Bay Fur
Company. His journals, after lying for more than two hundred years in
manuscript, have been published and have proved very interesting. They
give such an inside picture of savage life, with its nastiness, its
alternate gluttony and starving, and its ferocity, as it would be hard
to find elsewhere, drawn in such English as the wildest humorist would
not dream of inventing.
Pierre Esprit Radisson was born at St. Malo, in France, and came to
Canada in May, 1651. His home was at Three Rivers, where his relatives
were settled. One day he went out gunning with two friends. They were
warned by a man whom they met that hostile Indians were lurking in the
neighborhood. Still they went on, forgetting their danger in the
enjoyment of shooting ducks. Finally, however, one of the party said
he would not go further, and the other joined him. This led Radisson
to banter them, saying that he would go ahead and kill game enough for
all.
On he went, shooting again and again, until {192} he had more geese and
ducks than he could carry home. Finally, after hiding some of his game
in a hollow tree, he started back. When he came near the place where
he had left his companions, imagine his horror at finding their bodies,
"one being shott through with three boulletts and two blowes of an
hatchett on the head, and the other run through in several places with
a sword and smitten with an hatchett."
Suddenly he was surrounded by Indians who rose, as it were, out of the
ground and rushed upon him, yelling like fiends. He fired his gun,
wounding two with the duck-shot, and his pistol, without hurting any
one. The next moment he found himself thrown on the ground and
disarmed, without a single blow.
His courage had impressed the Indians so favorably that they treated
him very kindly. When they pitched their camp, they offered him some
of their meat, which smelt so horribly that he could not touch it.
Seeing this, they cooked a special dish for him. He says it was a
nasty mess, but, to show his appreciation, he swallowed some of it.
This pleased his captors, and they further showed their good-will by
untying him and letting him lie down comfortably {193} between two of
them, covered with a red coverlet through which he "might have counted
the starrs."
The Indians traveled homeward in very leisurely fashion, stopping by
the way for days at a time and making merry with Radisson, to whom they
evidently had taken a strong liking. When they tried to teach him to
sing, and he turned the tables by singing to them in French, they were
delighted. "Often," he says, "have I sunged in French, to which they
gave eares with a deepe silence." They were bent on making a thorough
savage of him. So they trimmed his hair after their most approved
fashion and plastered it with grease.
He pleased his captors greatly by his good humor and his taking part in
chopping wood, paddling, or whatever might be doing, and chiefly by his
not making any attempt to escape. In truth, he simply was afraid of
being caught and dealt with more severely.
They were traveling the familiar route to the Iroquois country, and in
time they came to a fishing-station, the occupants of which greeted the
returning warriors uproariously. One of them struck Radisson, who, at
a sign from his "keeper," clinched with him. The two fought {194}
furiously, wrestling and "clawing one another with hands, tooth, and
nails." The Frenchman was delighted that his captors encouraged him as
much as their fellow tribesman. He came off best, and they seemed
mightily pleased.
The two men whom he had wounded at the time of his capture, far from
resenting it, showed him "as much charity as a Christian might have
given."
Still things looked squally for Radisson, when he entered the native
village of the party and saw men, women, and boys drawn up in a double
row, armed with rods and sticks, evidently for the savage ordeal of
running the gauntlet. He was on the point of starting, resolved to run
his swiftest, when an old woman took him by the hand, led him away to
her cabin, and set food before him. How different from being tortured
and burned, which was the fate that he expected! When some of the
warriors came and took him away to the council-fire, she followed and
pleaded so successfully that he was given up to her, to be her adopted
son, in the place of one who had been killed.
Now nothing was too good for Radisson. The poor old woman had taken
him to her heart, and {195} she lavished kindness on him. Her
daughters treated him as a brother, and her husband, a famous old
warrior, gave a feast in his honor, presenting him to the company under
the name of Orinha, which was that of his son who had been killed. He
enjoyed the savage life for a time, having "all the pleasures
imaginable," such as shooting partridges and "squerells."
But he soon grew home-sick and eager for an opportunity to escape. One
offered itself unexpectedly. He had gone off on a hunt of several days
with three Indians who invited him to join them. On the second day
out, they picked up a man who was alone and invited him to go with them
to their camp, which he gladly did. Imagine Radisson's surprise when
this man, while the others were getting supper ready, spoke to him in
Algonquin, that is, the language of the people who were allies of the
French and mortal enemies of the Iroquois. Evidently he was a prisoner
who had been spared and given his liberty.
"Do you love the French?" he asked in a low tone.
"Do you love the Algonquins?" Radisson returned.
"Indeed I do love my own people," he {196} replied. "Why, then, do we
live among these people? Let us kill these three fellows to-night with
their own hatchets. It can easily be done."
Radisson professes to have been greatly shocked. But in the end he
fell in with the plan. The two treacherous villains, after eating a
hearty supper with their intended victims, lay down beside them and
pretended to sleep. When the three Iroquois were deep in slumber, they
rose, killed them with tomahawks, loaded the canoe with guns,
ammunition, provisions, and the victims' scalps, which the Algonquin
had cut off as trophies, and started on the long journey to Three
Rivers.
Fourteen nights they had journeyed stealthily, lying in hiding all the
day, for fear of meeting Iroquois on the war-path, and had reached a
point but a few miles from Three Rivers, when, venturing to cross Lake
St. Peter, a wide expansion of the St. Lawrence, by daylight, they
encountered a number of hostile canoes. In vain they turned and
paddled their hardest for the shore they had left. The enemy gained on
them rapidly and opened fire. At the first discharge the Indian was
killed and the canoe was so riddled that it was sinking, when the
Iroquois ranged alongside and took Radisson out.
{197}
Now he was in trouble indeed. No more junketing! No more singing of
jolly French songs to amuse his captors, but doleful journeying along
with nineteen prisoners, one Frenchman, one Frenchwoman, and seventeen
Huron men and women, the latter constantly chanting their mournful
death-song.
Through the day the poor wretches lay in the canoes, pinioned and
trussed like fowls; and at night they were laid on the ground securely
fastened to posts, so that they could not move hand or foot, while
mosquitoes and flies swarmed about them. When the Iroquois country was
reached, they furnished sport to the whole population, which turned out
everywhere to greet them with tortures. This time Radisson did not
wholly escape. But when, for the second time, he was on the point of
running the gauntlet, for the second time his "mother" rescued him.
His "father" lectured him roundly on the folly of running away from
people who had made him one of the family. Still he exerted himself
strenuously to save Radisson from the death penalty which hung over
him, and succeeded in securing his release after he had been duly
tortured.
"Then," he says, "my father goes to seeke {198} rootes, and my sister
chaws them and my mother applyes them to my sores as a plaster." After
a month of this primitive surgery, he was able to go about again, free.
The winter passed quietly and pleasantly. Then Radisson, anxious to
show himself a thorough Iroquois, proposed to his "father" to let him
go on a war-party. The old brave heartily approved, and the young
renegade set off with a band for the Huron country.
Now follows a dreary account of the atrocities committed. In the end
the party, after perpetrating several murders, encountered a
considerable number of the enemy, with the loss of one of their men
severely wounded. They burned him, to save him from falling into the
enemy's hands, and then fled the country. Their arrival at home, with
prisoners and scalps, mostly of women and children, was an occasion of
great honor, and Radisson came in for his full share.
Being now allowed greater freedom, he improved it to run away to join
the Dutch at Fort Orange (Albany). He tramped all the day and all the
night without food, and at daylight found himself near a Dutch
settler's cabin. The Dutch treated him with great kindness, gave him
clothes and {199} shoes, and shipped him down the Hudson to "Menada"
(Manhattan, New York), whence he sailed for Amsterdam. From that port
he took ship for La Rochelle, in France, and thence back to Canada.
To cover a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, he had been
obliged to travel about seven thousand!
Hitherto we have seen Pierre Radisson figure as a mere _coureur de
bois_. Now we shall see him in the more important role of a discoverer.
Probably he and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart, who styled himself
the Sieur des Groseillers, in the course of their long trading journeys
among the Indians, in 1658 reached the Mississippi. One important
discovery they unquestionably made a few years later. That they were
the first white men trading in the Lake Superior region is proved by
Radisson's giving the first description of notable objects on the
shores of the lake. His account of the memorable experiences of this
journey, considerably abridged, fills the remainder of this chapter.
One cannot but wonder that, until a very recent time, the name of this
interesting discoverer has not even been mentioned by historical
writers. {200} Here was a man who certainly was of considerable
importance in his day, since he was one of two who suggested the
formation of the famous Hudson Bay Fur Company, and yet who, until
lately, never was spoken of by historians who recorded the achievements
of Pathfinders in America. What was the cause of this singular
neglect? Chiefly the fact that in his time Canada was full of
adventurous _voyageurs_. The fur-trade was the great and only avenue
to wealth, and it attracted the most daring spirits. These hardy
fellows penetrated the wilderness in all directions, and it was chiefly
they who made the northern portion of our country known to white men.
Radisson and his brother-in-law, who was his constant companion,
belonged to this class. Their journeys were not made for scientific,
but for commercial, purposes. They were simply in quest of furs, and
whatever discoveries they made were accidental. Thus, little account
was made of them at the time.
The chief reason, however, is that the importance of Radisson's journal
escaped attention. It was mistaken for a mere record of wanderings.
Places not being named--at that time they had no names but the Indian
ones--close attention {201} to the descriptions in the narrative was
needed in order to identify them and determine his route. Thus it came
to pass that this singularly interesting journal remained unpublished,
that is, practically unknown, for more than two hundred years. When,
happily, the Prince Society of Boston recognized its value and printed
it, in 1885, the writer at once took his rightful place among the
Pathfinders.
Radisson and his brother-in-law, in the spring of 1661, applied to the
Governor of Canada for permission to go on a trading journey up the
lakes. On his refusing, except on the condition of their taking with
them two of his servants and giving them half of the profits, they
slipped away at midnight without leave, having made an agreement with
some Indians, probably Ojibways, of the Sault (Sault Ste. Marie,
between Lake Huron and Lake Superior), that these would wait for them
at Lake St. Peter, some miles above Three Rivers.
The two parties met, as agreed, and began their long journey. After a
few days they found traces of a party that had preceded them, their
fires still burning. Judging from certain signs that these were not
enemies, they exerted themselves to {202} overtake them. They found
them to be a party of Indians from Lake Superior who had been to
Montreal and were returning. The two bands united and now formed a
considerable force, in fourteen canoes. This union proved a happy
circumstance, for the next day they were attacked by a war-party of
Iroquois who were lying in wait for the Lake Superior Indians, having
observed their passage down the river. The Iroquois, who had fortified
themselves, were evidently surprised to find themselves confronted by a
far larger force than they expected.
Radisson and an Indian were sent to scout and examine the fort. They
found it to be a stockade surrounded by large rocks. The Iroquois made
overtures for peace by throwing strings of wampum over the stockade,
and that night they slipped away, leaving a free passage to Radisson's
party.
The next day, however, there was a brush with Iroquois, in which three
were killed, as well as one of Radisson's party. The enemy were not in
sufficient force to make a fight in the open and fell back into an old
fort--for this region, being on the route to the upper lakes, was a
constant battleground. Radisson's party gathered to attack it, {203}
the Iroquois meanwhile firing constantly, but doing little harm.
Darkness came on, and the assailants filled a barrel with gunpowder
and, "having stoped the whole" (stopped the hole) and tied it to the
end of a long pole, tried to push it over the stockade. It fell back,
however, and exploded with so much force that three of the assailants
themselves were killed.
Radisson then made a sort of hand-grenade by putting three or four
pounds of powder into a "rind of a tree" (piece of bark) with "a fusey
[fuse] to have time to throw the rind." This he flung into the fort,
having directed his Indians to follow up the explosion by breaking in
with hatchet and sword. Meanwhile the Iroquois were singing their
death-song. The grenade fell among them and burst with terrible
execution. Immediately Radisson's party broke in, and there was a
scene of confusion, assailants and assailed unable in the darkness to
distinguish friend from foe.
Suddenly there fell a tremendous downpour of rain, with pitchy
darkness, which seemed so timely for the Iroquois that Radisson
remarks, "To my thinking, the Devill himselfe made that storme to give
those men leave to escape from our {204} hands." All sought shelter.
When the storm was over the Iroquois had escaped. The victors found
"11 of our ennemy slain'd and 2 only of ours, besides seaven wounded."
There were also five prisoners secured. The bodies of their own dead
were treated with great respect. "We bourned our comrades," says
Radisson, "being their custome to reduce such into ashes being slained
in batill. It is an honnour to give them such a buriall."
At daybreak the party resumed their journey, rejoicing in "10 heads and
foure prisoners, whom we embarqued in hopes to bring them into our
country, and there to burne them att our own leasures for the more
satisfaction of our wives." Meanwhile they allowed themselves a little
foretaste of that delight. "We plagued those infortunate. We plucked
out their nailes one after another." Probably, when Radisson says
"we," he means the Indians only, not his brother and himself.
Traveling on, the party espied a large force of Iroquois hovering near.
Anticipating an attack, "we killed our foure prisoners, because they
embarrassed us." "If ever blind wished the Light, we wished the
obscurity of the night, which no {205} sooner approached but we
embarqued ourselves without any noise and went along." Radisson thinks
the Iroquois must have been encumbered with prisoners and booty: else
they would not have let his party get away so easily. Fearing,
however, to be pursued, these plied their paddles desperately "from
friday to tuesday without intermission," their "feete and leggs" all
bloody from being cut in dragging the canoes over sharp rocks in the
shallows. After this terrible strain, being "quite spent," they were
fain to rest, so soon as they felt themselves safe from pursuit.
The party was following Champlain's old route, up the Ottawa River,
across country to Lake Nipissing, then down its outlet, French River,
to Lake Huron.
After a hard and perilous journey, having "wrought two and twenty dayes
and as many nights, having slept not one houre on land all that while,"
they came out on Lake Huron. Still trouble beset them, in the form of
dearth of food. Game was scarce along the shore, and they were glad of
such berries as they found. Radisson records that the "wildmen," as he
always calls the Indians, showed themselves "far gratfuller then many
Christians even to their {206} owne relations," for whenever they found
a good patch of berries they always called him and his brother to get a
full share. In due time they reached a strait full of islands (the St.
Mary's River), where an abundance of fish relieved their hunger, and
came to "a rapid that makes the separation of the lake that we call
Superior, or upper" (Sault Ste. Marie).[1]
Some of Radisson's Indian companions were now in their native region.
They had promised the two Frenchmen that they "should make good cheare
of a fish that they call Assickmack, wch signifieth a white fish," and
so it proved.[2]
{207}
Game, also, was most abundant; and, after their long hardships and
privations, the Frenchmen thought this country "like a terrestriall
paradise." Having rested and enjoyed the abundance of food for a
while, the party went on, "thwarted (crossed) in a pretty broad place
and came to an isle most delightfull for the diversity of its fruits."
Here they supped and enjoyed themselves until ten o'clock, when, the
night being fine, they embarked again and before daylight reached the
south shore of the lake. Here Radisson was shown a place where "many
peeces of copper weare uncovered." He and his brother were about to
take some specimens, when the Indians told them that they would find
far larger quantities at a place to which they were going.
The next evidence that we encounter of the accuracy of Radisson's
narrative is his description of the hills of shifting sand that form a
striking feature of this part of the coast. One of the Indians climbed
an especially high one, and, Radisson says, "being there, did shew no
more then a crow." These are the sand-hills, which the Indian legend,
in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," says were thrown up by Pau-puk-keewis when
he blew up a whirlwind. The sight of so much sand reminded Radisson of
{208} "the wildernesses of Turkey land, as the Turques makes their
pylgrimages" (the desert of Arabia).
Next the voyagers came to a very "remarquable place, a banke of Rocks
that the wildmen made a sacrifice to. They fling much tobacco and
other things in its veneration." Radisson thus describes this striking
object. "It's like a great Portall, by reason of the beating of the
waves. [He means that the dashing of the water against the mass of
rock has worn it away in the shape of an arch.] The lower part of that
oppening is as bigg as a tower and grows bigger in the going upp. A
shipp of 500 tuns could passe, soe bigg is the arch. I gave it the
name of the portall of St. Peter, because my name is so called, and
that I was the first Christian that ever saw it." The latter statement
seems unquestionably true. But Radisson's name did not
stick--unfortunately, for "St. Peter's Portal" would be a
better-sounding and more significant name than the meaningless
"Pictured Rocks," which is the common designation of this famous object.
This natural arch affords a striking illustration of the wearing effect
of water. The waves constantly washing and often beating in fury upon
the line of sandstone cliffs has, in the course of ages, {209} hollowed
this arch at the point where the rock was softest. The immense amount
of material thus washed from the face of the cliffs has been thrown
ashore, blown along the coast, and heaped up in the sand-hills which
Radisson describes, and which are reliably reported to vary from one
hundred to three hundred feet in height.
A few days later the party came to a place where they made a portage of
some miles, in order to save going around a peninsula jutting far out
into the lake. "The way was well beaten," says Radisson, "because of
the comers and goers, who by making that passage shortens their journey
by 8 dayes." From this circumstance it is evident that our travelers
were on a frequented route, and that the Indians knew enough of the
geography of the country to avoid a canoe journey of several hundreds
of miles, by carrying their light craft and their goods across the base
of the peninsula, which is here very narrow, being almost cut in two by
a chain of lakes and rivers.[3]
{210}
Radisson was told that "at the end of the point there is an isle all of
copper." This is not very far from the truth, for this peninsula
contains, about Keweenaw Point, the richest copper deposit in the
world. In 1857 there was taken from one of the mines a mass of ore
weighing 420 tons and containing more than ninety per cent of pure
copper.
Traveling on, the party met with some Christinos, or Crees, who joined
it "in hopes," says Radisson, "to gett knives from us, which they love
better then we serve God, which should make us blush for shame." In
time they came to "a cape very much elevated like piramides," probably
the "Doric Rock." In a certain "channell" they took "sturgeons of a
vast bignesse and Pycks of seaven foot long," probably the well-known
muscalonge.[4]
Now the long canoe voyage had come to an end, and as the Indians said
that five days' journey would be needed to bring them to their homes,
and the two white men had heavy packs which they were loth to carry so
long a distance, they {211} decided to remain where they were and let
their red friends either come or send back for them. Then, being but
two men, surrounded by wild tribes, they built themselves a little
triangular log fort by the water-side, with its door opening toward the
water. All around it, at a little distance, was stretched a long cord,
to which were fastened some small bells, "which weare senteryes"
(sentries), Radisson says.[5]
Having thus fortified themselves with a perfect armory within, namely,
"5 guns, 2 musquetons, 3 fowling-peeces, 3 paire of great pistoletts,
and 2 paire of pocket ons, and every one his sword and daggar," they
might feel reasonably safe in a country in which the natives as yet
stood in awe of fire-arms. They had some friendly visitors, but would
never admit more than one person at a time. Radisson says, in his
droll way, "During that time we had severall alarums in ye night. The
squerels and other small beasts, as well as foxes, came in and
assaulted us." For food there was an abundance of fish and of
"bustards" (wild geese), of which Radisson shot a great number.
{212}
When, after twelve days, some of their traveling companions reappeared,
they were astounded at the sight of the fort and complimented the two
Frenchmen by calling them "every foot devills to have made such a
machine." They had brought a quantity of provisions, imagining the two
white men to be famishing. But, lo! here was a supply of game more
than sufficient for the whole party. The Indians wondered how it
chanced that the Frenchmen's baggage was so greatly reduced. These
accounted for it by saying that, fearing lest the sight of so much
wealth should lead to their being murdered, they had taken a great part
of their merchandise and sunk it in the water, committing it to the
care of their "devill," who was charged "not to lett them to be wett
nor rusted, wch he promised faithlesse" that he would do; all of which
the simple creatures believed "as ye Christians the Gospell." Radisson
explains that he and his brother had really burled the goods across the
river. "We told them that lye," he says, "that they should not have
suspicion of us."
The two white men immensely enjoyed the profound deference paid them.
When they started on their journey, "we went away," says Radisson,
{213} "free from any burden, whilst those poor miserables thought
themselves happy to carry our Equipage, for the hope that they had that
we should give them a brasse ring, or an awle, or an needle."
After traveling four days, our "2 poore adventurers for the honour of
our countrey" were told that they were approaching their destination.
Runners went ahead to warn the people of their coming. "Every one
prepared to see what they never before have seene," that is, white men.
Their entry into the village was made with due pomp, and they
"destinated 3 presents, one for the men, one for the women, other for
the children, to the end," says Radisson, "that we should be spoaken of
a hundred years after, if other Europeans should not come in those
quarters." These gifts having been received with great rejoicing,
there followed feasting, powwowing in council, and a scalp-dance, all
of which occupied three days and consumed, in good Indian fashion, the
provisions which should have helped them to get through the fast
approaching winter. Accordingly, we soon read of the horrors of
famine, amid the gloomy wintry forests, the trees laden and the ground
deeply covered with snow. Radisson gives a moving description of it.
"It {214} grows wors and wors dayly. . . . Every one cryes out for
hunger. Children, you must die. ffrench, you called yourselves Gods
of the earth, that you should be feered; notwithstanding you shall tast
of the bitternesse. . . . In the morning the husband looks upon his
wife, the Brother his sister, the cozen the cozen, the Oncle the nevew,
that weare for the most part found dead." So for two or three pages he
goes on telling of the cruel suffering and of the various substitutes
for nourishing food, such as bark ground and boiled; bones that had
lain about the camp, picked clean by dogs and crows, now carefully
gathered and boiled; then "the skins that weare reserved to make us
shoose, cloath, and stokins," and at last even the skins of the tents
that covered them.
Radisson and his brother had long since eaten their dogs. About this
time "there came 2 men from a strange countrey who had a dogg" the
sight of which was very tempting. "That dogge was very leane and as
hungry as we weare." Still the sight of him was more than mortal could
bear. In vain the two Frenchmen offered an extravagant price for the
poor beast; his owners would not part with him. Then they resolved
{215} to "catch him cunningly." So Radisson watches his opportunity,
prowling at night near the visitors' cabin, and when the dog comes out,
snatches him up, stabs him, and carries him to his party, where he is
immediately cut up and "broyled like a pigge." Even the snow soaked
with his blood goes into the kettles.
Radisson's description of the horrors of that fearful time will not
fail to remind readers of Hiawatha of the poet Longfellow's picture of
a famine in the same region in which Radisson was. The main features
are the same. There is the bitter cold,
O the long and dreary winter!
O the cold and cruel winter!
There is the gloomy, snow-laden forest,
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
There are the pitiful cries of the helpless, starving ones,
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
There is the hunter engaged in his bootless quest, {216}
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
In the snow beheld no footprints.
Then came the two dread visitors, Famine and Fever, and fixed their
awful gaze on Minnehaha, who
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they uttered.
Out into the forest rushes Hiawatha, crying frantically to Heaven,
"Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!"
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang the cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of the woodlands,
"Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"
All the day he roamed the gloomy depths of the wintry woods, still
vainly seeking food. When he came home empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
lo! the spirit of Minnehaha had fled to the Islands of the Blessed.
Her body they laid in the snow,
In the forest deep and darksome,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks.
{217}
The singularly vivid descriptions of Indian life, with its alternations
of human affection and fiendish cruelty, of daring and cowardice, of
gorging and starving, make one of the most interesting features of
Radisson's book. He lived the life himself and left such a picture of
it as few white men could have drawn. Accordingly, he soon tells of
feasting once more. What broke the famine was a storm of wind and rain
that caused the snow to fall from the trees, cleared the forests, and
formed, after a freeze, a crust on the snow that enabled the hunters to
kill an abundance of game. Deer, with their sharp hoofs, broke through
the crust "after they made 7 or 8 capers" (bounds), and were easily
taken. There was other food, too, for there came a deputation of
Indians to visit the white strangers, accompanied by their women
"loaded of Oates, corne that growes in that country." He means wild
rice, which formed the staple food of certain tribes. This was a gift,
and at its presentation there were elaborate ceremonies, the account of
which fills several pages. Still this was only the beginning, for the
appointed time for a grand council was approaching, and soon there
arrived deputations from eighteen different tribes, until five hundred
{218} warriors were assembled. More feasting, more ceremonies, more
honors to the white visitors, who received more beaver-skins than they
could possibly carry away, and pledges of eternal friendship on both
sides.
Hardly were these rites ended, when there came fresh troops of savages,
and all began over again. "There weare," says Radisson, "playes,
mirths, and bataills for sport. In the publick place the women danced
with melody. The yong men that indeavoured to gett a pryse [prize]
indeavored to clime up a great post, very smooth, and greased with oyle
of beare."
Then followed a most interesting exhibition "in similitud of warrs,"
the young men going through the various motions of attack, retreat, and
the like, without a word, all the commands being given by "nodding or
gesture," the old men meanwhile beating furiously on drums made of
"earthen potts full of water covered with staggs-skin." There followed
a dance of women, "very modest, not lifting much their feete from the
ground, making a sweet harmony."
Finally, after more feasting, more "renewing of alliances," more
exchange of gifts, in which, of course, the Frenchmen received valuable
furs in {219} return for the merest trifles, the great assembly broke
up, the red men filed off toward their distant villages, and the
honored strangers started on their long homeward journey, with numerous
sled-loads of peltry.
All that summer they traveled among the numerous islands on the north
shore of the great lake, enjoying an abundance of ducks, fish, and
fresh meat. Radisson was amazed at "the great number of ffowles that
are so fatt by eating of this graine [wild rice] that heardly they will
move from it." He saw "a wildman killing 3 ducks at once with one
arrow."
When the final start was made for the French settlements, there were
seven hundred Indians in 360 canoes, with a proportionately large
quantity of beaver-skins. A stop was made at the River of Sturgeons,
to lay in a store of food against the voyage. In a few days over a
thousand of these fish were killed and dried.
After they had started again, Radisson came near to parting unwillingly
with the splendid fleet of canoes that he was guiding down to the
French settlements. One day they espied seven Iroquois. So great was
the dread of these formidable savages, that, though these seven took to
their heels and {220} discarded their kettles, even their arms, in
their flight, the sight of them threw the hundreds with Radisson into a
panic. They were for breaking up and putting off their visit to
Montreal for a year. Radisson pleaded hard, and, after twelve days of
delay and powwowing, he succeeded in prevailing on all except the Crees
to go on with him.
Down the St. Mary's River into Lake Huron the great fleet of canoes
went in long procession. Then, the wind being favorable, everybody
hoisted some kind of sail, and they were driven along merrily until
they came to the portage. This passed, they went on down the Ottawa
River without misadventure as far as the long rapids. Then another
panic seized the Indian fleet, this time on more reasonable grounds,
for the party discovered the evidences of a slaughter of Frenchmen.
Seventeen of these, with about seventy Algonquins and Hurons, had laid
an ambush here for Iroquois, whom they expected to pass this way.
Instead, the biter was bitten. The Iroquois, when they came, numbered
many hundreds, and they overwhelmed and, after a desperate resistance,
destroyed the little band of Frenchmen, with their allies. The
appalling {221} evidences of this slaughter were terrible proof that
the enemy were numerous in that neighborhood. Even Radisson and his
brother were alarmed. They had much ado to persuade their Indian
friends to go on with them. As last they succeeded and proudly led to
Montreal the biggest canoe-fleet that had ever arrived there, "a number
of boats that did almost cover ye whole River."
It was a great triumph for the two daring _voyageurs_ to bring to
market such a volume of trade and many Indians from distant tribes who
never before had visited the French.
They expected that this service would be recognized. Instead, the
Governor put Groseillers in prison and fined both an enormous sum for
going away without his leave. Incensed at this injustice, they
determined on going to London and offering their services to the
English King. This was the reason of Radisson's translating the notes
of his travels into a language that was foreign to him, with such queer
results as we have seen in the extracts that have been given.
[1] Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites in his "Father Marquette" quotes the
following description, written by a Jesuit missionary about eight years
after Radisson's visit: "What is commonly called the Saut is not
properly a Saut, or a very high water-fall, but a very violent current
of waters from Lake Superior, which, finding themselves checked by a
great number of rocks, form a dangerous cascade of half a league in
width, all these waters descending and plunging headlong together."
[2] It is interesting to learn that the whitefish, so much prized
today, was held in equally high esteem so long ago, and even before the
coming of the white men. The same writer quoted above by Dr. Thwaites
tells of throngs of Indians coming every summer to the rapids to take
these fish, which were particularly abundant there, and describes the
method. The fisherman, he says, stands upright in his canoe, and as he
sees fish gliding between the rocks, thrusting down a pole on the end
of which is a net in the shape of a pocket, sometimes catches six or
seven at a haul.
[3] The great steamers of to-day follow this route, which the Indian's
bark canoe frequented hundreds of years ago. This illustrates the
interesting fact that, over all this continent, the Indians were the
earliest pathmakers. Important railroads follow the lines of trails
made by moccasined feet, and steamboats plough the waters of routes
which the birch canoe skimmed for centuries.
[4] Undoubtedly it was one of these "sturgeons of a vast bignesse"
that, according to the legend, swallowed both Hiawatha and his canoe.
We are now in Hiawatha's country, and we are constantly reminded by
Radisson's descriptions of passages in Longfellow's beautiful poem.
[5] This little structure has a peculiar interest, because of its
being, in all probability, the first habitation of white men on the
shores of Lake Superior. It seems to have stood on Chequamegon Bay.
{225}