A Life on the American Frontiers: Collected Works of Henry Schoolcraft. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

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СКАЧАТЬ seemed impossible to ascend it, especially with the larger canoe, but by the men’s first carrying the lading, by widening the channel in cutting down the banks with paddles, and then by walking in the stream and lifting the canoe by its gunnels, they succeeded in getting it up to another lake, called Little Long Lake. We were twenty-four minutes in crossing this latter lake, and found its inlet to be connected with four other small lakes of a pondy character, redolent with nymphæ odorata, through which we successively passed, and debarked at the head of the last lake on a shaking bog, being the commencement of portage Ple. This portage is quite short and dry, lies over a hill-prairie, and terminates on the banks of a transparent, bowl-shaped lake, with elevated shores, where we made our breakfast, at twelve o’clock. This lake, which we may refer to as the Lake of the Mountains, notwithstanding the liveliness and purity of its waters, has no visible outlet, a characteristic of which it partakes in common with a very great number of the small lakes of this quarter, which may be supposed to lie in aluminous strata. Next, in the order of travelling south of it, is the Mountain Portage, appropriately so called. Its extent is nine hundred and ten yards. The elevation is considerable, but no rock strata appear in situ. The soil is diluvial, with boulders. The growth, yellow pine, with small maples and underbrush. It terminates on the Lake of the Island. There is then a portage of two pauses, or 1,960 yards into another lake, quite pond-like, where it is first entered, but assuming a clear and bright surface after turning a prominent point. There is then a further portage of one pause, a part of it, through a morass, but terminating on highlands, surrounding the head and shores of a handsome and comparatively extensive sheet of water called Kagi Nogumaug, or The Long Water, where we encamped for the night. This day’s journey was a hard and fatiguing one, to the men. The Gueule Plat, who with one of the minor chiefs from Leech Lake, overtook us on the banks of the Lake of the Island, expressed his surprise that, with all our baggage and heavy canoes, we had pushed on so far. It was, however, a definite point in the journey. We were now on the source of the Kagági, or De Corbeau river. To have stopped short of it, would have seriously broken in on the labors of the following day; and the knowledge that the series of portages terminated there, and the downward passage commenced, buoyed up the men to make exertions. The day was particularly severe upon the soldiers, who were less accustomed to this species of fatigue. Never were the shadows of night more grateful to men, who had employed the morning, and the noon, and the evening of the day, in hard labor. We had now reached the fourth source of the primary rivers of the Mississippi, and all heading on the elevation of the Hauteur des Terres, within a circle of perhaps seventy miles. These sources are Itasca Lake, its primary, Ossowa, east fork, Shiba Lake and river, source of Leech Lake, and the present source, The Long Water, being the source of the De Corbeau, or Crow-wing river.

      Gueule Plat, with his Indian secretary, so to call him, or Mishinowa, and their families, came and encamped with us. The chief said that he had many things to speak of, for which he had found no time during my visit. I invited him to sup with the party. Conversation on various topics ensued, and the hour of midnight imperceptibly arrived, before he thought of retiring to his own lodge. I was rather confirmed in the favorable opinions I have before expressed of him, and particularly in the ordinary, sober routine of his reflections, and the habitual, easy manner, which he evinced of arriving at correct conclusions. I could not say as much for his companion and pipe-lighter, Maji Gabowi, a very tall, gaunt, and savage looking warrior, who appeared to be made up, body and mind, of sensualities. And although he appeared to be quiet and passive, and uttered not a single expression that implied passion or vindiction, I could not divest my mind of the recollection that I was in company with the murderer of Gov. Semple. Whoever has given much attention to north-western affairs, will recollect that this event occurred in the fierce strife carried on between the North West and Hudson’s Bay Company. And that, in the desperate struggles which these corporations made for the possession of the fur trade, the Indians often became the dupes of whichever party appeared, at the moment, to possess the power of influencing them. The event referred to, took place near the close of a long struggle in which the spirit of opposition had reached its acme, in which company was furiously arrayed against company, charter against charter, and agent against agent. A period, at which, like the increasing energies of two powerful bodies moving towards each other, they were destined to come into violent contact, and the destruction of one, or both, seemed inevitable. The dispute respecting territory which imbittered the strife, appeared to be carried on, not so much from political ambition or the intrinsic value of the soil, as to decide which party should have the exclusive right of gleaning from the lodges of the unfortunate natives, the only commodity worth disputing for—their furs and peltries. A question, in which the Indians, in reality, had no other interest, but that which a serf may be supposed to feel on an exchange of masters, in which he has neither the right to choose nor the power to reject. Whichever party prevailed, they were sure to loose or gain nothing, if they kept aloof from the contest, or if they had any hopes from its effects upon their condition, they arose more from a prolongation, than a termination of the rivalry, as they were sure to fare better, both “in script and store,” so long as they possessed the option of rival markets.

Semple had accepted a governorship, which the late John Johnston, Esq. had the forecast to refuse. He appeared to be a man zealously devoted to the objects of the company (the Hudson’s Bay) whose interests were committed to him. But he does not appear clearly to have perceived the great difference which circumstances had interposed between a magistracy in an English or Scottish county, and the naked solitudes of Red River. He sallied forth himself, with a considerable retinue, to read the riot act, to a disorderly and threatening assembly of all kinds of a northwest population, on the plains. The agents and factors of the North West Fur Company, were accused of being at the bottom of this uproar, and it is certain that some of their servants were engaged, either as actors or abettors. It is among the facts recorded in a court of justice, that when certain of the clerks or partners of the North West Company heard of the tragic result of this sally, they shouted for joy.17

      While the act was in the process of being read, one of the rioters fired his piece. This was taken as a signal. A promiscuous and scattering firing commenced. Semple was one of the first who received a wound. He was shot in the thigh, and fell from his horse. He was unable to sit up. At this moment a rush was made by the Indians in the North West interest, and a total and most disastrous route of the Hudson’s Bay party ensued. Panic, in its wildest forms, seized upon Semple’s men. He was himself one of the first victims despatched. Maji Gabowi, (one of our guests this evening) coming up, struck his tomahawk in his head. He was then scalped.

      We embarked at sunrise, on the 19th, bidding adieu to the Leech Lake chief and his companion, who returned from this point, after having requested, and received a lancet, with directions from Dr. Houghton, for vaccinating such of his people as had not been present on the 17th. We were forty minutes in passing the Kagi Nogumaug, which is a handsome sheet of pure water presenting a succession of sylvan scenery. Its outlet is a narrow brook overhung with alders. It may average a width of six feet, but the bends are so extremely abrupt, and the channel so narrowed with brushwood, that it became necessary to dig down the acute points, and to use the axe in cutting away branches, to veer about a canoe thirty-two feet in length. We were just half an hour in clearing this passage, when the stream opened into another lake, denominated on our travelling map, Little Vermillion Lake. The growth on the banks of this lake is birch and aspen, with pines in the distance. We were twenty minutes in passing it. The outlet is full doubled in width, and free from the embarrassments encountered above. Tamarack is a frequent tree on the shores, and the pond lily, flag and Indian reed, appear in the stream. This outlet is followed about eight miles, where it expands into a small lake, called Birch Lake, which we were only thirteen minutes in passing. Its outlet exhibits a pebbly bottom, interspersed with boulders, which produce so much inequality in the depth, that the men were obliged often to wade. Not more than seven or eight minutes were thus occupied, in the course of which we passed through a broken fish-dam, when we entered another expanse called Lac Ple.

      Lac Ple is about three and a half, or four miles long. Vegetation here appears to show a more southerly character. Part of its shores are prairie, interspersed with small pines. It is particularly deserving of notice, as being the point, from which СКАЧАТЬ