The search for the veritable source of the Mississippi is
resumed.--Ascent to Cass Lake, the prior point of
discovery--Pursue the river westerly, through the Andrúsian Lakes
and up the Metoswa Rapids, forty-five miles--Queen Anne's Lake.
Twelve years elapse between the closing of the prior, and the opening of
the present narrative. In the month of August, 1830, instructions were
received by Mr. Schoolcraft to proceed into the Upper Mississippi
valley, to endeavor to terminate the renewed hostilities existing
between the Chippewa and Sioux tribes. These directions did not come to
hand at the remote post of Sault de Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake
Superior, in season to permit the object to be executed that year. On
reporting the fact that the tribes would be dispersed to their
hunting-grounds before the scene could be reached, and that severe
weather would close the streams with ice before the expedition could
possibly return, the plan was deferred till the next year. Renewed
instructions were issued in the month of April, 1831, and an expedition
organized at St. Mary's to carry them into immediate effect.
These instructions did not require the broad table-lands on which the
river originates to be visited, though the journey connected itself with
preliminary questions; nor was it found practicable to extend the
geographical examinations, in the Mississippi Valley, beyond about
latitude 44°.
The force designed for this expedition consisted of twenty-seven men,
including a botanist and geologist, and a small military party under
Lieut. Robert E. Clary, U. S. A. Entering Lake Superior, in the month of
June, with a bright pure atmosphere and serene weather, the party
enjoyed a succession of those clear transporting vistas of rock and
water scenery, which render this picturesque basin by far the most
magnificent, varied, and affluent in its prospect in America. It is in
this basin only, of all the series of North American lakes which
stretch west from the St. Lawrence, that peaks and high mural walls of
volcanic formation, pierce through, or lift up, the horizontal series of
the silurian system; and that, in the lake region, the latter is found
in singular juxtaposition, by means of these upheavals, with the
senites, sienitic granites, and metamorphic rocks composing the globe's
nucleus, or primary out-pushed stony coats of these latitudes.
I had passed through this varied and wonder-creating scene of coast
views and long-stretching vistas in 1820, when geology, in America, at
least, was in its infancy, as a member of the organic government
expedition into this quarter of the Union, as detailed in the preceding
pages. I had, in 1826, revisited the whole coast from Point Iroquois to
Fond du Lac, in the exercise of official duties, connected with the
Indian tribes; besides making sectional expeditions into the regions of
the Gargontwa and Mishepecotin, and of the Takwymenon sand-rock,
interior, and coast lines. But the beauty of the prospects presented in
1831, the serenity of the weather, and the opportunity which it gave of
revisiting scenes which had before flitted by, as the fragments of a
gorgeous dream, gave to this visit a charm which no length of time can
obliterate. And these attractions were enhanced by association with the
agreeable men who accompanied me; of whom it may be said that they
represented the place of strings in a melodious harp, whose concurrence
was at all times necessary to produce harmony. The sainted and
scene-loving Woolsey[152]--the self-poised and amiable Houghton, just
broke loose from the initial struggles of life to luxuriate on the
geological smiles of the face of nature in this scene--ah! where are
they? Death has laid his cold hand on them, to open their eyes on other,
and to us inscrutable scenes.
[152] _Vide_ Letters on Lake Superior, in _Southern Literary
Messenger_, 1836.
Passing through this lake, the expedition met the brigade of boats of
the late Mr. Wm. Aitken, from the Upper Mississippi waters, with the
annual returns of furs from that region. He represented the urgent
necessity of an official visit to that section of the country, where the
Indians were in turmoil; but stated, at the same time, that the waters
were too low in the streams at the sources of the Mississippi to render
explorations practicable. He also represented it impracticable, this
season, to enter the Mississippi by the way of the _Broulé_, or Misakoda
River. This information was confirmed on reaching Chegoimegon, at the
remarkable group of the Confederation Islands (_ante_, p. 105).
Returning eight miles on my track, I entered the Muskigo, or Mauvais
River, and ascended this stream by all its bad rafts, rapids, and
portages, to the upper waters of the River St. Croix of the Mississippi.
Crossing the intermediate table-lands, with their intricate system of
lakes and portages to _Lac Courteroille_, or Ottawa Lake, I entered one
of the main sources of Chippewa River, and descended this prime
tributary stream to its entrance into the Mississippi, at the foot of
Lake Pepin. From the latter point I descended to Prairie du Chien, and
to Galena in Illinois. Dispatching the men and canoes from this place
back to ascend the Wisconsin River, and meet me at the portage of Fort
Winnebago, I crossed the lead-mine country by land, by the way of the
Pekatolica, Blue Mound, and Four Lakes, to the source of the Fox River,
and rejoining my canoes here, descended this stream to Green Bay, and
returned to my starting-point by the way of Michilimackinac and the
Straits of St. Mary. Two months and twelve days were employed on the
journey, during which a line of forests and Indian trails had been
passed, of two thousand three hundred miles.
The Indians had been met, and counselled with at various points, at
which presents and provisions were distributed, and the peace policy of
the Government enforced. A Chippewa war party, under Ninaba, had been
arrested on its march against the Sioux in descending the Red Cedar fork
of the Chippewa River. Information was obtained that nine tribes or
bands had united in their sympathies for the restless Sauks and Foxes,
who broke out in hostility to the United States the following spring.
Messages, with pipes and belts, and in one case notice, with a tomahawk
smeared with vermilion, to symbolize war, had passed between these
tribes.[153]
[153] An outline of the expedition of 1831 is found in Schoolcraft's
"Thirty Years on the American Frontiers." Lippincott & Co. Phila.
1850.
The information was communicated to the Government, with a suggestion
that an expedition should be organized for visiting remoter regions the
next year, and forwarding, at the same time, detailed estimates of the
expenditures essential to its efficiency. These suggestions were
approved by the Secretary of War on the 3d of May, 1832, and
instructions forwarded to me for organizing an expedition to carry the
reconnoissance and scrutiny to the tribes on the sources of the
Mississippi. A small escort of U. S. infantry was ordered to accompany
me, under Lieut. James Allen, U. S. A., who, being a graduate of the
West Point Military Academy, undertook the departments of topography and
trigonometry. I secured the services of Dr. Houghton, as physician and
surgeon, and acting botanist and geologist--positions which he had
occupied on the prior expedition of 1831. The American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions were invited to send an agent to
observe the wants and condition of the Indian tribes in these remote
latitudes; who directed the Rev. Wm. T. Boutwell to join me at St.
Mary's. I charged myself especially with inquiring into the Indian
history and languages, statistics, and general ethnography.
The expedition left the Sault de Ste. Marie on the 7th of June, taking
the route through Lake Superior to Fond du Lac and the St. Louis River,
and the Savanna Summit to Sandy Lake, which lies 500 miles above St.
Anthony's Falls of the Upper Mississippi. The width of the Mississippi
at the outlet of Sandy Lake, by a line stretched across, was found to be
331 feet. At my camp here, a general council was summoned of the lower
tribes, who were notified to assemble at the mouth of the River Des
Corbeau on the 20th of July; and a boat with presents and supplies was
sent down the Mississippi to await the return of the expedition through
that river. Lightened thus of baggage, and having fixed a point of time
within which to finish the explorations above, I proceeded up the main
channel of the river to, and across the Pakagama Falls, and its wide
plateau of savannas, and through the Little and Great Winnipek Lakes, to
the Upper Red Cedar, or Cass Lake, which we entered on the 10th of July.
This is a fine lake of transparent water, about eighteen miles in
length, with several large bays and islands as denoted in the
accompanying sketch, which give it an irregular shape. The largest
island, called _Grande Isle_ by the French, which is the _Gitchiminis_
of the Indians, and the _Colcaspi_[154] of my initial narrative of 1832.
This lake was the terminus of the respective explorations of Lieutenant
Zebulon Pike, U. S. A., in 1806, and Governor Lewis Cass in 1820. The
points at which they approached it were not, however, the same. Pike
visited it in a dog train, on the snow, in the month of January, across
the land, from the Northwest Company's trading post at Leech Lake. He
visited an out-station of that company on Grand Island. Cass landed in
July, after tracing its channel from Sandy Lake to the entrance of
Turtle River, the line of communication to Turtle Lake, which was long
the reputed source of the river. This has been called by a modern
traveller in the region Lake Julia, that he might call it the _Julian_
source of the Mississippi.[155]
[154] This is an anagram composed of the names of Schoolcraft, Cass,
and Pike, the geographical discoverers, in reversed order, of the
region.
[155] Beltrami.
I found the Mississippi, at the point where it flows from the lake, to
be 172 feet wide, not having lost half the width it had at Sandy Lake,
although in this distance it is diminished by the volume of its Leech
Lake tributary, which the northwest agents informed Lieutenant Pike, in
1806, to be its largest tributary. I had reached it ten days earlier in
the season than Governor Cass, having been exactly one day less in
traversing the long line of intervening country from Sault de Ste.
Marie. I proceeded directly to Grand Isle, the residence of a Chippewa
band numbering 157 persons. This island was found to have a fertile
soil, where they had always raised the zea maize. Its latitude is 47°
25´ 23´´. Not only had I reached this point ten days earlier in the
month than the expedition of 1820, but it was found that the state of
the water on these summits was very favorable to their ascent.
Ozawindib,[156] the Chippewa chief, said that his hunting-grounds
embraced the source of the Mississippi, but that canoes of the size and
burden which I had could not ascend higher than the _Pemidjegumaug_, or
Queen Anne's Lake. I determined to encamp my extra men permanently on
this island, with the heavy canoes, provisions, and baggage, leaving
the camp in charge of Louis Default, a trusty man, of the _metif_ class,
well acquainted with the Indian language, who had been a guide in 1820,
and to make explorations, in the lightest class of Indian canoes,
provisioned for an _élite_ movement. Lieutenant Allen also determined to
encamp the United States soldiers of the party, leaving them under a
sergeant. To give each gentleman of the party an opportunity of joining
in this movement, it was necessary to procure five hunting canoes, which
were of no greater capacity than to bear one _sitter_[157] and two
paddlers.
[156] This name is derived from _ozawau_, yellow; _winisis_, hair,
and _kundiba_, bone of the forehead or head.
[157] The term "sitter," which is a northwest phrase in common use,
is equivalent to the Canadian word _bourgoise_.
Ozawindib and his companions produced these canoes at an early hour on
the following morning, and having, at my request, drawn a map of the
route, embarked himself as the guide to the party. We left the island
before it was yet daylight. The party now consisted of sixteen persons,
including three Chippewas and eight _engagees_. The Mississippi enters
this lake through a savanna, on its extreme western borders, after
performing one of those evolutions through meadow lands so common to its
lower latitudes; after reaching to within fifty yards of the lake, it
winds about, through a natural meadow, for many miles before its
debouchure. The chief, who was familiar with this feature, carried me to
a fifty yards portage, by which we saved some miles of paddling. We
reached the Mississippi at a place where it expands into an elongated
lake, for which I heard no name, and which I called Lake Andrúsia.[158]
After passing through this, the river appeared very much in size and
volume as it had on the outlet below Cass Lake. It winds its way through
the same species of natural meadows, during which there is but little
current. On ascending this channel but a short distance, the river is
found to display itself in a second lake--which the natives call
Pamitascodiac[159]--which, in general appearance and character, may be
deemed the twin of Lake Andrúsia. On its upper margin, a tract of
prairie land appears, of a sandy character, bearing scattered pines.
This appears to be the particular feature alluded to by the Indian name.
About four miles above this lake, and say fifteen from Cass Lake, the
rapids commence. It was eight o'clock A. M. when we reached this point,
and we had then been four hours in our canoes from the Andrúsia portage.
These rapids soon proved themselves to be formidable. Boulders of the
geological drift period are frequently encountered in ascending them,
and the river spreads itself over so considerable a surface that it
became necessary for the bowsmen and steersmen to get out into the
shallows and lead up the canoes. These canoes were but of two fathoms
length, drew but a few inches water, and would not bear more than three
persons. It was ten o'clock when we landed, on a dry opening on the
right shore, to boil our kettle, and prepare breakfast. So dry, indeed,
was the vegetation here, that the camp-fire spread in the grass and
leaves, and it required some activity in the men to prevent its burning
the baggage. There were ten of these rapids encountered before we
reached the summit, or plateau, of Lake Pemidjegumaug, which is the _Lac
Traverse_ of the French. These were called the Metóswa rapids, from the
Indian numeral for ten.
[158] From Andrew Jackson, at that time President of the United
States.
[159] This word appears to be a derivation from _pemidj_, across,
_muscoda_, a prairie, and _ackee_, land.
The term _Lac Traverse_ has been repeated several times by the Canadian
French, in our northwestern geography; being prominently known in the
Upper Mississippi for a handsome sheet of water, connecting the St.
Peter's, or Minnesota River, with Red River of Hudson's Bay; and as the
Indian name, though very graphic, is not euphonious, I named it Queen
Anne's Lake.[160] It is a clear and beautiful sheet of water, twelve
miles in length, from east to west, and six or seven broad, with an open
forest of hard wood. It is distant forty-five miles from Cass Lake, and
lies at an elevation of fifty-four feet above that lake, and of 1,456
feet above the Gulf of Mexico. The latitude is 47° 28´ 46´´. The
peculiarity recognized by the Indian name of Pemidjegumaug, or
Crosswater, is found to consist in the entrance of the Mississippi into
its extreme south end, and its passage through or across part of it, at
a short distance from the point of entrance. Another feature of its
topography consists of its connection, by a lively channel of less than
a mile's length, with another transverse lake of pure waters, to which I
applied the name of Washington Irving. These features are shown by the
subjoined sketch.
[160] In allusion to an interesting period of British history, in its
influences on America.
[Illustration: 1. Queen Anne's Lake. 2. Washington Irving's Lake. 3.
Mississippi River.]