Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

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      and one hand holding a sword, told the tale that they were commanded by an officer. Mr. Doty was drawn with a book, they having understood that he was a lawyer. I was depicted with a hammer, to denote a mineralogist. Mr. Trowbridge and Mr. Chase, and the interpreter, were also depicted. Chamees and his companion were drawn by a camp-fire apart, and the figure of the tortoise and a prairie-hen denoted the day's hunt. There were three hacks on the pole, which leaned to the N. W., denoting our course of travel. Having examined this unique memorial, it was carefully replaced in its former position, when we again set forward. It appeared we had rested in a sort of oasis in the swamp, for we soon entered into a section of a decidedly worse character than that we had passed the day before. The windfalls and decaying timber were more frequent—the bogs, if possible, more elastic—the spots dry enough to halt on, more infrequent, and the water more highly colored with infusions of decaying vegetable matter. We urged our way across this tract of morass for nine hours, during which we estimated our progress at fourteen miles, and encamped about four o'clock P. M., in a complete state of exhaustion. Even our Indian guides demanded a halt; and what had, indeed, added to our discouragements, was the uncertainty of their way, which they had manifested.

      Our second night's repose in this swampy tract, was on ground just elevated above the water; the mosquitos were so pertinacious at this spot as to leave us but little rest. From information given by our guides, this wide tract of morass constitutes the sources of the Akeek Seebi, or Kettle River, which is one of the remotest sources of the Mille Lac, and, through that body of water, of Rum River. It is visited only by the Indians, at the proper season for trapping the beaver, marten, and muskrat. During our transit through it, we came to open spaces where the cranberry was abundant. In the same locality, we found the ripe fruit, green berries, and blossoms of this fruit.

      It was five o'clock A. M. when we resumed our march through this toilsome tract, and we passed out of it, after pressing forward with our best might, during twelve hours. We had been observant of the perplexity of our guides, who had unwittingly, we thought, plunged us into this dreary and seemingly endless morass, and were rejoiced, on a sudden, to hear them raise loud shouts. They had reached a part of the country known to them, and took this mode to express their joy, and we soon found ourselves on the banks of a small clear stream, called by them Bezhiki Seebi, or Buffalo Creek, a tributary to Sandy Lake. We had, at length, reached waters flowing into the Mississippi. On this stream we prepared to encamp, in high spirits, feeling, as those are apt to who have long labored at an object, a pleasure in some measure proportioned to the exertions made.

      Any other people but the Indians would feel ill at ease in dreary regions like these. But these sons of the forest appear to carry all their socialities with them, even in the most forbidding solitudes. They are so familiarized with the notions of demons and spirits, that the wildest solitude is replete with objects of hope and fear. We had evidence of this, just before we encamped on the banks of the Bezhiki, when we came to a cleared spot, which had been occupied by what the Canadians, with much force, call a jonglery, or place of necromantic ceremonies of their priests or jossakeeds. There were left standing of this structure six or eight smooth posts of equal length, standing perpendicularly. These had been carefully peeled, and painted with a species of ochrey clay. The curtains of bark, extending between them, and isolating the powow, or operator, had been removed; but the precincts had the appearance of having been carefully cleared of brush, and the ground levelled, for the purposes of these sacred orgies, which exercise so much influence on Indian society.

      We were awaked in our encampment, between four and five o'clock, the next morning, by a shower of rain. Jumping up, and taking our customary meal of jerked beef and biscuit, we now followed our guides, with alacrity, over a dry and uneven surface, towards Sandy Lake. We had now been three days in accomplishing the traverse over this broad and elevated, yet sphagnous summit, separating the valley of the St. Louis of Lake Superior from that of the Upper Mississippi. As we approached the basin of Sandy Lake, we passed over several sandy ridges, bearing the white and yellow pine; the surface and its depressions bearing the wild cherry, poplar, hazel, ledum latifolia, and other usual growth and shrubs of the latitude. On the dry sandy tracts the uva ursi, or kinnikinnik of the Indians, was noticed. In the mineral constitution of the ridges themselves, the geologist recognizes that wide-spreading drift-stratum, with boulders and pebbles of sienitic and hornblende, quartz, and sandstone rock, which is so prevalent in the region. As we approached the lake we ascended one of those sandy ridges which surround it, and dashing our way through the dense underbrush, were gratified on gaining its apex to behold the sylvan shores and islands of the lake, with the trading-post and flag, seen dimly in the distance. The view is preserved in the following outlines, taken on the spot.