The southern shore of Lake Superior is mostly composed of lowlands,
covered with sand, glacial deposits and clays, which came from the
lake during a former stage of much higher water, when it extended many
miles south of the present boundary. These lands, while not well
adapted to agriculture, contain rich deposits of copper, iron and
other metals and valuable red sandstones. Around the rapids and canals
at the outlet has gradually grown the town of Sault Sainte Marie,
familiarly known as the "Soo," having ten thousand people, and
developing important manufactures from the admirable water-power of
the rapids, which is also utilized for electrical purposes. An
international bridge brings a branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway
over from Canada, on its way to Minneapolis and St. Paul, with
connections southward to Chicago, and there is also the military post
of Fort Brady. Stately processions of vessels constantly move through
the canals, being locked up or down when the navigation season is
open, and making this a very animated place, over fifteen thousand
ships passing in the seven months when the canals are free from ice.
The tonnage is the greatest using any system of canals in the world,
far exceeding Suez, and the recent improvements enable vessels of
twenty-one feet draft to go through the new locks. Both Governments
have expended millions upon these important public works, which are
chiefly employed for the transport of grain, flour, coal, iron-ores
and copper. The favorite sports at the "Soo" are catching white fish
and "shooting the rapids" in canoes guided by the Indians, who are
very skillful.
About one hundred miles westward from the "Soo," on the southern lake
shore, there rise cliffs of the red and other sandstones formed by the
edges of nearly horizontal strata coming out at the border of the
lake. These are the noted Pictured Rocks, rising three hundred feet,
extending for a distance of about five miles, and worn by frost and
storm into fantastic and romantic forms, displaying vivid hues--red,
blue, yellow, green, brown and gray--as they have been stained by the
oozing waters carrying the pigments. At intervals, cascades fall over
the rocks. One cliff, called the Sail Rock, is like a sloop in full
sail, and there are various castles and chapels, and an elaborate
Grand Portal. In the country around is laid much of the scene of
_Hiawatha_, and at the little lake port of Munising, nearby, was the
site of the wigwam of the old woman, Nokomis,
"On the shores of Gitchee Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water."
To the westward is the region of iron-ores, and here is Marquette,
named for the great Jesuit missionary Father Marquette, who was the
first founder of mission settlements in this region, and died in 1675
near the mouth of Marquette River. This town of fifteen thousand
people is on Iron Bay, and is the chief port of the Marquette,
Menominee and Ishpeming mines. Farther to the westward the great
Keweenaw Peninsula projects, the name meaning in the Indian dialect
the "canoe portage." At its base, the Portage Lake almost separates it
from the mainland, and a short portage to the westward formerly
carried the canoes over the narrow isthmus. A canal now enables the
lake shipping to pass through without making the long detour around
the outer end of the peninsula. Upon this rocky peninsula are the
great copper-mines of Michigan, including the Quincy, Tamarack,
Osceola, Franklin, Atlantic, and the Calumet and Hecla. The latter is
the world's leading Copper Company, making over $4,000,000 estimated
annual profit, employing five thousand men, and having the deepest
shaft in existence, the Red Jacket, which has been sunk forty-nine
hundred feet. Houghton, on the southern shore of Portage Lake, is the
leading town of the copper district. To the southwestward and in the
western part of the Upper Michigan Peninsula is Lake Gogebic, elevated
thirteen hundred feet, in another prolific iron-ore district, the
Gogebic range, which produces Bessemer ores, and has its shipping port
across the Wisconsin boundary at Ashland, another busy town of fifteen
thousand people at the head of Chequamegon Bay. Out in front are the
Apostle Islands, a picturesque group, and to the westward the head of
Lake Superior gradually narrows in the Fond du Lac, or end of the
lake, where are situated its leading ports, Superior City in Wisconsin
and Duluth in Minnesota.
Here in the seventeenth century came the early French, and in 1680 a
trading-post was established by Daniel du Lhut, afterwards becoming a
Hudson Bay Company Station. The mouth of St. Louis River and its bay
were naturally recognized as important points for trade, and when the
Northern Pacific Railway was projected Superior City got its start.
The first railroad scheme failed, the panic of 1857 came, and the
railway project was abandoned until after the Civil War; and then,
when it was renewed, the terminus was located over on the other side
of the river, the place being named Duluth, after the French trader.
While there has been great rivalry between them, and Duluth has
outstripped Superior, yet the latter has an extensive trade and thirty
thousand people. Duluth, the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as it
has been ambitiously called, was originally projected on Minnesota
Point, a scythe-shaped natural breakwater running out seven miles into
the lake, which protects the harbor, but the town was subsequently
built farther in. There were about seventy white people in the
neighborhood in 1860, and in 1869 its present site was a forest, while
the railroad, which had many set-backs, had only brought about three
thousand people there in 1885. The completion of other railway
connections in various directions, the discovery of iron deposits, and
the recognition of its advantageous position for traffic, subsequently
gave Duluth rapid growth, so that it now has eighty thousand people,
and is the greatest port on the lake. It is finely situated, the
harbor being spacious and lined with docks and warehouses, and it has
many substantial buildings. Back of the city a terrace rises some four
hundred feet, an old shore line of Lake Superior when the water was at
much higher level, and here is the Boulevard Drive, giving splendid
views over the town and lake. The vast extent of wheat lands to the
westward and the prolific iron-ore district to the northward give
Duluth an enormous trade. Its railways lead up to the Messabi and
Vermillion ranges, now the greatest producers of Lake Superior
iron-ores, the red hematite, most of the output being controlled by
John D. Rockefeller and his associates. These mines yield the richest
ores in the world, and have made some of the greatest fortunes in
Duluth. Yet they were not discovered until 1891, and then the lands
where they are generally went begging, because nobody would give the
government price for them, $1.25 per acre. One forty-acre tract, then
abandoned by the man who took it up because he did not think the pine
wood on it was enough to warrant paying $50 for it, is now the
Mountain Iron Mine, netting Mr. Rockefeller $375,000 annual profit,
and his railroad bringing the ores out gets more than that sum for
freights.