GITCHE GUMEE
Bruce Henley realized that the information Ganawa had just given him
was not encouraging; but if he had fully comprehended the size of this
inland sea, its sheer endless shore-line, which it would take years to
explore and search in detail, he would have been utterly discouraged at
the well-meant information of Ganawa.
On the usual small map of a school-book, Lake Superior looks quite
commonplace and harmless, but no man can stand on its shore without
feeling the overwhelming power and mystery of this sea in the heart of
a continent. It is different from every other lake on earth.
The distance a boat must sail from its west end at Duluth to the canals
which now pass the Sault Sainte Marie is greater than the distance from
St. Paul and Minneapolis to Chicago or from Buffalo to New York. Its
shore-line would stretch more than half-way across the continent
between New York and San Francisco.
On this shore-line there are great bays, more than fifty miles in
length, such as Nipigon Bay and Black Bay, where a canoe or small boat
might wind about for a whole summer in a maze of channels and among a
world of large and small islands, and bold, rocky headlands.
On the other hand, there are great stretches of more than a hundred
miles where the rocks, a hundred feet high, drop sheer into the lake,
and where it is difficult for even a canoe or a rowboat to find shelter
in a storm.
In area, Lake Superior is about equal to the combined areas of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Its greatest depth runs
close to a thousand feet, and depths of three hundred to seven hundred
feet a few miles from shore are very common. The water is so clear that
in quiet bays one can see a fish at a depth of twenty feet, and the
waves and the white spray have the color and appearance of waves and
spray of the ocean.
The water is always ice-cold, except in midsummer within a few feet of
the surface and in quiet, sheltered bays. But even in midsummer, the
surface temperature does not pass fifty degrees.
The low temperature of the water is the reason that bodies of persons
drowned in Lake Superior very rarely rise to the surface or drift
ashore. The tradition that Lake Superior never gives up its dead is as
old as the navigation of the lake by white men, and it existed among
the Indians before the arrival of white men.
The writer has found no records of Indians ever travelling over the
middle of the lake. Several of the red tribes were bold and skillful
canoeists, but they were not sailors. They did, however, occasionally
visit the large islands such as Michipicoten and Isle Royale, and in
fair weather they paddled boldly along the shore from the Sault to
Grand Portage and Duluth, and in one recorded case the Chippewa woman,
Netnoqua, and her adopted white son, John Tanner, beat a trader’s
sailboat on the voyage from the Sault to Grand Portage at the mouth of
the Pigeon River. On this trip Netnoqua’s canoe must have travelled
nearly five hundred miles.
Unfortunately a school-book map cannot tell the story of the Big Lake,
but a look at the fine large map of Lake Superior published by the
United States Lake Survey suggests at a glance the spell of the Big
Lake, of the clear cold water, of calm sunny summer days, of thick gray
fogs, and of terrible autumn and winter storms.
Had Bruce and Ray Henley known all these things, their hearts might
have failed them and they might never have ventured on the waves of
Lake Superior and into the wild forests which, at that time, surrounded
the whole of the vast inland sea.
A few days after Bruce and Ganawa had had their talk, the Chippewa
suggested that they might travel up the Big Lake a little way.
“My sons,” he told his white friends, “we shall learn nothing more of
your brother and we shall never find him, if we stay in this camp and
fish in the lake and hunt deer in the forest. I have friends who
generally make their summer camp on Batchawana Bay. It may be that they
can tell us more of your white brother. They may have seen French
traders from the Grand Portage or even from a very distant place, which
the French call Fond du Lac, which lies many leagues toward the setting
sun and means ‘the End of the Lake.’
“You must have noticed, my sons,” he continued after a pause, “that
Hamogeesik and his friends have left our camp. I do not know where they
have gone. You should not be afraid of them, although I believe that
they are planning some evil, because their tongues are forked and their
hearts are black.”
A few days later, Ganawa and his two white sons paddled a large
birch-bark canoe up-stream. When the water became too swift, Ganawa
steered the light craft to a safe landing-place and stepped out into
the shallow water.
“My sons,” he said, “take our axes, our blankets, and other things and
follow me.” Then he lifted the canoe on his shoulders and walked away
with it on a plain portage trail. After he had walked about a mile he
put the canoe in the water again.
“My little son,” he said to Ray Henley, “you must now learn to travel
in an Indian canoe. Here is a small paddle which I have made for you of
cedar wood. It is very light and will not tire your arms.”
Then Bruce knelt on a piece of canvas in the bow of the boat. Ray took
his place in the middle, while Ganawa knelt in the stern, which is
always the place of the steersman.
“My sons,” spoke Ganawa, “I shall now steer you over the water of the
Big Lake to the beautiful and quiet Bay of Batchawana. You, my little
son, must not be frightened if a big wave lifts up our canoe, and you
must not put your hands on the sides of the canoe. When your arms are
tired you may rest, but you must sit very still, for you know that the
water of Gitche Gumee is very cold.”
The day was already well advanced when the three travellers started
north on the open lake. The sky was clear and there was no wind, but a
haze hung on the horizon and made the western shore invisible as Ganawa
skirted along the east shore. A broad swell from the north added to the
impression that the canoe was headed for the open sea.
“Bruce, I am afraid,” Ray whispered. “This lake is so much bigger than
Lake George and Lake Champlain in Vermont. It looks like the ocean. I—I
am afraid we shall all drown.”
“My son, you need have no fear,” Ganawa assured the young lad. “The
lake is not very big here. If there were no haze in the air you could
see the blue forest to the west. I can tell from the sky that no wind
is coming, and we are running so close to shore that we could land
before the waves grow too big, if a wind did spring up.”
They might have been going about three hours, when Ray became more
cheerful. “I can see land now,” he remarked, “ahead of us to the left.”
“You see an island, my son,” Ganawa told him. “The French call it Isle
Parisienne.”
When the sun stood low beyond this island, Ganawa headed the canoe
toward a point which is now called Goulais Point. “We sleep here
to-night,” he said. “It is not good to travel on the Big Lake after
dark.”
“My father,” asked Ray, “I thought you said it was only a little way to
that bay where we are going?”
“It is only a little way,” Ganawa replied calmly. “After we have slept,
we shall soon go to Batchawana Bay.”
Ray asked no more questions, but he wondered what distance Ganawa would
call a long journey, if he referred to a two-days’ trip as “only a
little way.”
When Ganawa had gone off to gather boughs for the night’s camp, Ray
could not resist expressing his anxiety to his older brother. “Bruce,”
he said, “this lake and the country are so big we shall never find
anybody. I am not afraid any more to go with you and Ganawa on the lake
if you don’t go in a storm. But you will see we shall never find Jack
Dutton. How can you find anybody here? There are no towns and no farms,
just water and woods, and rocks and big hills and islands and a few
Indians. Do you think there are wolves and bears in these woods? If
there are, I am going to ask Ganawa to let me sleep in the canoe.”
Just then Ganawa returned with an armful of boughs, but Ray could not
quite muster enough courage to ask him about the danger from wolves and
bears.
After a supper of venison, roasted on a fire of driftwood, Ray soon
slipped under the blankets on the bed of balsam boughs, and long before
Ganawa and Bruce stopped talking he was fast asleep after the many new
impressions and the fears and anxieties of the day.
The sun had just risen when Bruce called his young bedfellow. “Come,
Ray,” he said, gently shaking the lad, “Ganawa is waiting for us. He is
afraid the lake will get rough toward noon. There are clouds in the
west.”
The drowsy lad arose, quickly put on his clothes and walked to the
canoe with Bruce, and by the time Ganawa had pushed off, the sharp,
cool air of Lake Superior had fully waked up the sleepy boy, who was
not accustomed to start on a journey without breakfast.
However, they had started none too early. Before they reached the
entrance to the bay, the waves began to roll uncomfortably high. The
travellers, including Ray, plied a paddle with short quick strokes, and
although the young lad for a while suffered greater fear than the day
before, he did not say a word, but paddled hard, with his eyes fixed on
the quiet glistening bay ahead.
The sun indicated the approach of noon when they reached the north end
of the bay, where they stopped at a small Indian camp near the mouth of
the Batchawana River.
The thing that interested Ray most about this camp was a kettle of meat
hanging over the fire in front of one of the tepees, for by this time
the lad was ravenously hungry.