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.
Sandy Lake, from an eminence north of the mouth of the West Creek of the Portage of Savannah. 15th July, 1820.
I asked Chamees the Indian name of this lake. He replied, Ka-metong-aug-e-maug. This is one of those compound terms, in their languages, of which the particle ka is affirmative. Metongaug, is the plural form of sandy lake. Maug is the plural form of water, corresponding, by the usual grammatical duality of meaning, to the plural form of the noun. The word might, perhaps, be adopted in the form of Kametonga.
Having heard, on our passage through Lake Superior, that a gun fired in the basin of Sandy Lake, could be heard at the fort, that experiment was tried, while we sat down or sauntered about to await the result. Having waited in vain, the shots were repeated. After the lapse of a long time, a boat, with two men, was descried in the distance approaching. It proved to be occupied by two young clerks of the trading establishment, named Ashmun and Fairbanks. They managed to embark the elite of our party, in their small vessel, and, as we crossed the lake, amused us with an account of the excitement our shots had caused. Some Indian women affirmed to them that they had heard warwhoops, and to make sure that a Sioux war party were not upon them, they drove off their cattle to a place of safety. In the actual position of affairs, the hunt being over for the year, and the avails being sent to Michilimackinac (for this was the head-quarters of the factor whom we had met at Shelldrake River), the probabilities of its being a hunting party were less. We informed them that we were an advance party of an expedition sent out to explore the sources of the Mississippi River, under the personal order of his Excellency Governor Cass, who was urging his way up the St. Louis to the Savanna Portage, through which he intended to descend into Sandy Lake.
It was near sunset before we landed at the establishment. We found the trading fort a stockade of squared pine timber, thirteen feet high, and facing an area a hundred feet square, with bastions pierced for musketry at the southeast and northwest angles. There were three or four acres outside of one of the angles, picketed in, and devoted to the culture of potatoes. The stockade inclosed two ranges of buildings. This is the post visited by Lieut. Z. Pike, U. S. A., on snow-shoes, and with dog-trains, in the winter of 1806, when it was occupied by the British northwest trading company. As a deep mantle of snow covered the country, it did not permit minute observations on the topography or natural history; and there have been no explorations since. Pike's chief error was in placing the source of the Mississippi in Turtle Lake—a mistake which is due entirely, it is believed, to the imperfect or false maps furnished him by the chief traders of the time.
We were received with all the hospitality possible, in the actual state of things, and with every kindness; and for the first time, since leaving Detroit, we slept in a house. We were informed that we were now within two miles of the Mississippi River, into which the outlet of Sandy Lake emptied itself, and that we were five hundred miles above the Falls of St. Anthony. We had accomplished the transference of position from the head of the basin of Lake Superior, that is, from the foot of the falls of the St. Louis River, in seven days, by a route, too, certainly one of the worst imaginable, and there can be no temerity in supposing that it might be effected in light canoes in half that time.
CHAPTER IX.
Reunion of the expedition on the Savanna Portage—Elevation of this summit—Descent to Sandy Lake—Council with the Chippewa tribe—Who are they?—Traits of their history, language, and customs—Enter the Mississippi, with a sub-exploring party, and proceed in search of its source—Physical characteristics of the stream at this place—Character of the Canadian voyageur!
On rising on the next morning (14th July), our minds were firmly set, at the earliest moment, to rejoin the main expedition, which had been toiling its way up the St. Louis River to the Savanna Portage. And as soon as we had dispatched our breakfast at the Post, we set out, accompanied by one of the trading clerks, for that noted carrying place between the waters of the St. Louis and Sandy Lake. We reached its northwestern terminus at about twelve o'clock, and were surprised to find Gov. Cass, with some of his party, and a part of the baggage, already there; and by five o'clock in the afternoon the last of the latter, together with the canoes, arrived. And it was then, in the exhausted state of the men, and at so late an hour, concluded to encamp, and await the morning to commence the descent of the west Savannè to the lake.
The expedition had, after we left them at the Portage aux Coteaux on the 10th, and being thus relieved of our weight, urged its way up the river,