To the northward of Mackinac, Lake Superior discharges into Lake Huron
through the Sault Sainte Marie Strait, the "Leap of St. Mary." This
strait of St. Mary is a winding and most beautiful stream, sixty-two
miles long, being a succession of expansions into lakes and
contractions into rivers, dotted with pretty islands and having some
villages on the banks. The chief attraction is the Sault, or "Leap,"
which is a rapid of about eighteen feet descent, the navigation being
maintained through capacious modern systems of locks and ship canals
provided by both the United States and Canada. To the westward is the
great Lake Superior, the largest fresh-water lake on the globe, three
hundred and sixty miles long and covering thirty-two thousand square
miles, with a coast-line of about fifteen hundred miles. It is
elevated about six hundred feet above the ocean level, and has a depth
averaging one thousand feet. Nearly two hundred rivers and creeks flow
into it, draining a region of a hundred thousand square miles. There
are a few islands in the eastern and western portions, but all the
centre of the lake is a vast unbroken sheet of water, and generally of
a low temperature, the deeper waters being only 39° in summer. The
early French missionaries, who were the first explorers, told their
interesting story of Lake Superior in Paris in 1636, and in their
published account speak of its coasts as resembling a bended bow, of
which the north shore makes the arc of the bow, the south shore the
chord, and the great Keweenaw Point, projecting far from the southern
shore, represents the arrow. Superior has generally a rock-bound
coast, displaying impressive beauties of scenery, particularly on the
northern shore, where the beetling crags and cliffs are projected
boldly into the lake along the water's edge. This northern coast is
also much indented by deep bays, bordered by precipitous cliffs, back
of which rise the dark and dreary Laurentian Mountains. There are also
rocky islands scattered near this portion of the coast, some
presenting vast castellated walls of basalt and others peaks of
granite, elevated a thousand to thirteen hundred feet above the lake.
Nowhere upon the inland waters of North America is there grander
scenery.
The most considerable affluent of Lake Superior upon its northern
coast is the Nepigon River, coming grandly down cascades and rapids,
bringing the waters of Lake Nepigon, an elliptical lake among the
mountains to the northward covering about four thousand square miles,
bounded by high cliffs, and elevated over eight hundred feet. It is
studded with islands, has very deep waters, and receives various
streams from the remote northern wilderness. Upon the northwestern
shore of Lake Superior are gigantic cliffs, surrounding Thunder Bay, a
deep indentation divided from Black Bay by the great projecting
promontory of Thunder Cape, rising nearly fourteen hundred feet in
grand columns of basalt, the summit containing the crater of an
extinct volcano. Across from it is McKay Mountain, another basaltic
Gibraltar, rising twelve hundred feet from the almost level plain
bordering the bay. Pic Island is between them, guarding the entrance.
The pretty Kaministiquia River flows through rich prairie lands down
to Thunder Bay, and here is the chief Canadian town on the lake, Port
Arthur. Thirty miles up this river is the famous Kakabika Falls, where
the rocks are cleft so that the stream tumbles into a chasm one
hundred and thirty feet deep, and then boils along with rapid current
for nearly a half-mile through the fissure, the sides towering
perpendicularly, and in some places even overhanging their bases. Upon
this river was for many years the well-known Hudson Bay Company's
fur-trading station of Fort William, which now has grain elevators,
and is a suburb of the spreading settlement of Port Arthur. This was
the beginning of the great portage from Lake Superior over to the
Hudson Bay waters at Fort Garry, on the Red River in Manitoba, now
Winnipeg, the portage being the present route of the Canadian Pacific
Railway.