Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880

TWO PAPERS.—I

The Kleiner Fritz and Hattie of Louisville and the Betsy D. of Cincinnati made the canoe-fleet which the Northern Pacific Railway shunted out upon its station-platform at Detroit City, Minnesota, in the early gray of last July's first Thursday. We had bargained by post with Beaulieu, a shrewd, wiry, reckless French half-breed, for transportation of ourselves, canoes, equipment and provisions to Itasca Lake, or to a point upon the Mississippi five miles below the lake, as we might elect. His assurance was that four days and forty-one dollars would carry us to our first objective point. His helpers were a lively young half-breed, son-in-law of the murdered chief Hole-in-the-Day, another big mongrel, fat, plodding and reticent, and a young Indian who could speak a few English words, but was destitute of ideas in either English or Chippewa. Their motive-power was grazing on the open prairie back of the ragged village. The Reservation Indian, denied liquor at home, reckons upon a trip out of bounds as fair opportunity for a spree, so that catching and harnessing the ponies and cattle was a tedious task that covered the hours from breakfast well on toward noon; but at last the Hattie was firmly imbedded in prairie-grass and soft luggage upon one wagon, the Fritz and the Betsy were bound together upon a second, and the men of the fleet, with the stores, filled the third.

From Detroit City to Itasca Lake is about forty miles in a straight line, but no practicable way thither approximates to a direct line, and he who would see the beautiful lake and the head of the great river must travel for seven or eight days and endure many hardships. Sixty miles were to be done on wheels. The first day's travel was to White Earth Agency, twenty-two miles across a rolling prairie which steadily rises toward its climax in the Hauteur des Terres. The soil is of rare fertility, and the unbounded fields were clothed in the greenest of green, flecked with wild flowers of every hue in luxuriant profusion. Clumps of trees gave variety to the broad and beautiful view, while scores of clear little lakes gemmed the prairie as with great drops of molten silver. The eye swept an horizon of twenty miles, and once twenty leagues were within our visual grasp. The plodding fat man went his way in a dignified walk, but the passenger vehicle and that which bore the other boats, travelling by order of Beaulieu, who had in him more Detroit whiskey than ordinary discretion, came more than half the way at a terrible gait, spite of our remonstrances and greatly to our trepidation. Examination showed that the Betsy was racked and pounded beyond all excuse, while the poor Fritz revealed a hole in its graceful side like that made by a six-pound cannon-shot—a sad beginning for so long a cruise. Thence we went on slowly to the agency, where our first task was to find a clever Vermont Yankee reputed as the man to repair the unwelcome and inexcusable damage. The ingenious and genial fellow worked through the hot Fourth of July, while we mingled with the Indians and took part in their celebration, the first ever conducted entirely by themselves.

White Earth Agency is the seat of government of three reservations which embrace the homes of all the Chippewas. White Earth Reservation is thirty-six miles square, and is peopled by nearly seventeen hundred Indians and half-breeds. These were formerly gathered upon Crow Wing River, near Brainerd, where they existed in drunkenness, barbarism and destitution. In 1868 they were removed here, and the institutions of Christian civilization were introduced. They live in comfortable cabins and bark lodges. The agent, Major C.A. Ruffee, is a gentleman of capacity and integrity. Using his authority well and wisely, he is a king throughout his dominion of thirteen hundred square miles. His happy blending of civil and military government gives satisfaction to all who are well disposed. The Chippewas deal kindly among themselves, and have no quarrels with the whites. They have a well-arranged police system, with a chief, lieutenants and sergeants, embracing sixteen men in all, and directly responsible to the agent. No liquor is allowed on the reservation. They have no pilfering, and the few locks and bolts are rarely needed. In case of trespass or disagreement the parties come or are summoned before the agent, who examines the case on its merits, weighs the facts and the equities, decides; and there the quarrel ends.

The seat of the agency is an orderless village gathered about a green-shored little lake, and includes the office of the agent, the post-office, a warehouse for supplies, a meat-shop, two trading-stores and an untidy and comfortless hotel. Near by is the neat cottage of the agent, a large and comely boarding-school, an industrial school, and the residences of the chief clerk and of the head-farmer, who teaches and aids the Indians in practical farming. Not far away to the south is the Roman Catholic church; a mile to the north is the hospital, a large and cheerful building; and near the hospital are the tasteful Protestant Episcopal chapel and the rectory of the Rev. Mr. Gilfillan, who for fourteen years has worthily occupied a parish coextensive with the Chippewa Nation. The true solution of the Indian question is being worked out at White Earth in results that augur well for the future. Each child may secure education, and the minds and morals of all ages are cared for. Their churches are well attended and their schools have outgrown present accommodations. Their religious services and schools are conducted in their own language. They have an educated Indian clergyman who can scarcely speak English, while Mr. Gilfillan speaks the Chippewa as fluently as his mother-tongue. They have few quarrels, no thieving, no drunkenness, no abject poverty. They are not more perfect than others of human kind, but according to their light and sphere they are as good as a similar average of whites anywhere. The wise purpose is to make them kind, moral, educated and industrious Indians, not make-believe white men, and the work is doing and promising well in sincere and capable hands.

The Indian Fourth-of-July celebration took place in an open, treeless prairie. The festivities centred in a series of races run in pairs by the small and wiry Indian ponies over a curved, mowed and rolled half-mile course. Nearly all the young men were betters, in stakes of from twenty-five cents to ten dollars. There were no pools, but hard running, straight betting and square paying. The chief of police was the president of the course. All were in good-humor. There was no liquor, neither was there a harsh word or a blow among the five hundred. After the races eatables, tea, coffee and ice-water were enjoyed with laughter and chat. In the evening we cruisers gave a show of rockets and Roman candles, to the great delight of the Indians, and the day closed with a dance in the large dining-hall of the boarding-school.

Our damaged boats repaired and preparations completed for three weeks' absence from civilization, we set out near mid-day of Saturday for the march to Wild Rice River, eighteen miles. Our way lay among the cabins, lodges and farms of the Chippewas, over a billowy, green immensity bordered on the east by the lines of the Hauteur des Terres, which shut us from the Mississippi Valley, and horizoned on the west by the slopes beyond the famed Red River of the North. Our day's journey terminated, in a driving rainstorm, on the banks of Wild Rice River, where are a trading-store, the cabin of the trader and a neat chapel of the Protestant Episcopal mission. Our habitation for the night was a dark, muddy, odorous storehouse, in whose nether apartment we munched a frugal supper, then climbed a ladder to beds upon the bare floor between stacks of snake-root, which had accumulated from barterings with the Indians. During the night the rainstorm grew to a gale which rocked our night's home like a ship at sea to the music of heaven's grand diapasons. Sunday morning, impelled by the expense of our large retinue and the cheerlessness of our refuge, we pushed on for the foot of Wild Rice Lake, twenty miles distant over prairies and through forests. Two miles out we were overtaken by another fierce storm, which drove us to the shelter of the last human habitation, save two others near by, that we should see for three weeks. The broad, sweeping bow of the black cloud, the peculiar detonations of thunder in that clear atmosphere, the rush of wind, rain and hail, unhindered by the treeless and trackless moor, were lessons of God's majesty and power more impressive than cathedral mass or prayer and song and psalm of men. Out of the storm's first onset we rushed unasked into the hut of an Indian family, and surprised a pair of squaws and a six-months' pappoose squatting on a dirty and rain-pooled floor in almost total darkness. In an hour the storm had gone its eastward way, the sun shone out, and we resumed our trail among spruces, pines, oaks and elms to the foot of the lake, where we were to dismiss our prairie-schooners. Monday, with the early sun, we left teams and drivers, to push on by lakes, up rivers and through the pathless wilderness beyond all roads and habitations. Our party was reduced to the barest needs for the severe work before us. Besides our three selves we had a corps of five Indians as guides and packers, each of whom was a character, and all bore themselves through four days of severe work honestly, cheerfully and helpfully. They were Henry St. Clair, a half-breed, our interpreter, to whom we could only address measured monosyllables with any hope of imparting ideas, but always faithful, frank and wise; Kewashawkonce, the guide, a man of push and a genuine wag; Kawaybawgo, a huge hunter, whose old long shot-gun has banged over almost every acre of these wilds; Metagooe, a sleepy, thick-headed fellow; and Waisonbekton, young and active, always ready for work or burden and constantly alert for new and interesting things in Nature.

At the foot of Wild Rice Lake we prepared our canoes for voyaging, and began our long paddle toward the source of the Mississippi, whence we were to descend to civilization. A brief description of our little ships and equipment will help to a better understanding of our cruise. Each voyager had a Rob Roy canoe, slightly improved as to model and built upon the incomparable plan of Mr. Rushton of Canton, New York. The canoes are fourteen feet long, ten and a half inches deep and twenty-seven inches wide, decked over except a man-hole sixteen by about thirty-six inches, and weighing, with the mast and lug sail, from fifty to fifty-six pounds. The paddle is eight feet long, bladed at each end, grasped in the middle, and drives the canoe by strokes alternating on each side. The traveller sits flat upon the boat's floor, facing the bow. The canoe is not only a vehicle, but furnishes a dry and secure bed for sleeping at night, and, with its rubber apron, is a refuge from rain and storm. Each boat was equipped with an air-pillow, rubber blanket, rubber poncho, woollen blankets, rubber navy-bag and haversack. The general outfit represented a fine double shot-gun, a small and effective rifle, a revolver, fishing-tackle for each man, compass, aneroid barometer, thermometer, folding stove, stew-pans in nests, frying-pan, broiler, table-ware, and provisions for three weeks based upon the army ration, with dried fruits, condensed milk, brandy, medicines, etc., purchased at St. Paul.

Our stores and equipment suitably divided between the canoes, we paddled up through the outlet and into the lake, followed by Metagooe and Waisonbekton in a large birch-bark canoe bearing the provisions and camp-supplies of the Indians, while their companions walked across the country.

Wild Rice Lake is about one mile by five miles in extent. It is named from the wild rice which grows up from its shallow depths over almost its whole extent. Each autumn hundreds of Indians gather upon its shores in tents and lodges to secure the crop. Two squaws pass slowly through the thick rice in a birch canoe, one paddling at the stern and the other at the bow, drawing the ripe rice over the gunwale and with a club flailing the grain out of the straw into the boat. There and thus every family upon the reservation may secure an important part of the winter's provisions.

Through and over this green and productive sea we paddled about four miles to the mouth of Wild Rice River, which flows out of Upper Wild Rice Lake, then up the narrow, deep and crooked river. At our noon rendezvous Kawaybawgo and his foot-companions came in with a fine deer, the victim of his old but effective gun. In the early afternoon our progress became slow and excessively wearying from the shallowing of the river and its wonderful crookedness. The current ran like a mill-race around hundreds of short turns, and had its own exasperating way upon our keels. Finally, we were obliged to wade and drag the canoes after us in water varying between ankle-and waist-deep. A few hours of this wore us all out, and we called a halt and camp, utterly exhausted, with not more than twelve miles to the credit of the hard day's work. The Betsy D.'s skipper rolled over dead-beaten and sick; the Hattie's captain floundered up into the deep grass, incapable of further effort; while he of the Kleiner Fritz, scarcely better off, prescribed camphor and black coffee for the one and cherry brandy for the other, discreetly mixing the prescription for himself. Medication, an hour's rest and juicy rashers of broiled venison from the Indians' generous store soon brought the expedition to its wonted cheer and vigor.

Supper over, we filled the pipes of the Indians with fine tobacco and asked for a council. We all sat around a bright fire, and soon effected a bargain with the Indians to drag our canoes on up the little river, leaving us to walk across the country with the guide. Early the following morning we started, four of our party with the canoes, and we on foot with Kewashawkonce. The guide was pantomimed by our fat man for a conservative pace becoming the hot morning and the difficult route. Ke, as we abbreviated him, strode into an unbroken forest, grown with dense underbrush, strewn with fallen trees at almost every step, diversified by swamps and thickets through which he beat his way by main strength, and now and then traversed by rivers—all streams are rivers there—into which he plunged with never an interrogation-mark, and so on briskly, up hill and down, till, with three miles of walking, wading, climbing and struggling, we were brought to bay, tired out. Half an hour's rest and some refreshing wild strawberries prepared us for such another stage. Then an hour more of this terrible strain made us drop again for rest. Another hour, and before noon, hot and jaded, we came out upon a low bluff overhanging the river, and stopped for lunch. The guide, apparently fresh and unwearied, cut a sheet of birch bark for tinder, lit a fire as defence against mosquitos, and in sixty seconds was snoring. We were not slow in following his example, and the sun was dropping over into the west when we awoke. The guide examined the river, and informed us that our wading section was yet below. Standing in mid-stream drinking from his hands, he saw a fine pickerel's graceful movements a rod away, reached out for a half-sunken bit of a tree's branch, plunged it dexterously at the fish, struck it fairly in the back, and brought it up to us with a satisfied grunt. We lounged the afternoon away, and at six o'clock Metagooe came wearily to our camp with the Fritz at his heels. Half an hour later his comrades came with the other Rob Roys, their camp-traps loaded upon the decks and upon the interpreter's back. Our inquiry as to what had become of their birch canoe brought from Henry, as he dropped his pack, the sententious answer, "Busted." Over the evening's pipes and camp-fire, less than eight miles of actual distance accomplished, we resolved to abandon the shallow river and to portage directly to Upper Wild Rice Lake. The skipper of the Betsy proposed for the three of us a joint bed: Cincinnati feet have a troublesome time under a Rob Roy's low deck. We assented, stretched our rubber blankets, spread our woollens, adjusted the Betsy's long mosquito-bar and crawled carefully under it in expectation of a glorious sleep under the stars and the pines; but the dreams of the Hattie's captain, the trombonings of the Betsy's nose, the tossings of the Fritz and the savage industry of the mosquitos drove anything but troubled sleep from our eyelids, and we welcomed the early "Ho! ho! ho!" and improvised gong of the irrepressible Kawaybawgo.

Before we had done with our coffee, venison and slap-jacks the Indians had made yokes for carrying the canoes on their heads and shoulders, and had reduced the camp to packs. Soon we were off upon the first pose of a regular Indian portage. Each of three Indians had upon his shoulders one of the canoes, his head within its hot and darkening sides, its bow pointing forward high in the air and its stern hanging low behind his heels. The other two squatted upon heel and toe, drew the broad strap of their carrying-thongs over their foreheads, and with a plunge and a grunt sprang to their feet, each with a great hump of six score pounds. Then we plunged, in Indian file, into a trackless forest, and jogtrotted our way for three miles, when in a clump of pines, without a word or a signal, down came the boats and the packs. Three of the splendid fellows loosed their pack-thongs and took their rest in tramping back unloaded to camp for what had been left. The others, with us, rested a few moments: then we pushed on till two miles brought us out upon the low, jungled shore of a beautiful lake about one mile by two in extent. The guide, without a word, laid down his load, but not his clothes, and with a swift rush sprang far out into the lake, swam up and down, splashing, shouting and laughing, came dripping to shore, lit his smudge-fire, lay down in a sunny place, snored an hour, awoke dry and vigorous, and with a whoop he and Waisonbekton dashed into the woods to go back for their share of the luggage left behind. While they were gone we enjoyed our lunch and gave a name to the lovely lake which had rippled so long, far away from the haunts of men, without identity. We christened it Rob Roy Lake, in honor of our fleet. It lies half a mile to the south-west of Upper Wild Rice Lake, into which its waters flow, and is set down on Colton's sectional map in the township range numbered thirty-seven. Our entire party reunited, we canoeists paddled across to the lake's outlet, a narrow, miry stream which loses itself in a swamp, and that in turn merges into the Upper Wild Rice Lake. We paddled and poled down to the end of the little river, and came to a dead stand in the matted roots of the swamp-grass: then waded waist-deep in the mire and slime, each dragging his canoe with the aid of an Indian, until we came out upon the open water. Thence a paddle of two miles along the coast brought us to another little stream flowing into the lake. As we came to its mouth Kawaybawgo was feasting upon a duck he had killed and broiled, of which he offered me a portion with a smile and interrogative grunt which seemed to compassionate my wet, weary and forlorn appearance. A splendid pike, two feet long, came gracefully out of the stream and hung motionless in the clear water. I pointed him out to the Indian and the Hattie's captain, both of whom were standing near him. At the instant their eyes fell upon him he moved: then, as they started for him, he darted like a flash for deep water, pursued by the two men at the top of their speed through a sheet of water six inches deep for nearly a hundred feet out. It was a fair race, and the six-feet-three Indian made a splendid spurt, but the pike won.

The stream bore us upward to the floating bog out of which it flowed. We drew the canoes out upon a meadow which undulated in graceful billows at our every movement. A step would shake all the surface for a rod about us, while our combined tread sent waves of grassy earth in every direction. A sudden leap so shook the cup of cold coffee sitting by one of the Indians, six or seven yards away, that the liquid spilled over the cup's edge. The whole meadow, solid to the eye, is but one of those monster sponges that hold in abeyance waters which otherwise would sweep like a flood down the great rivers. Beyond this billowy field we came to the open water of another unnamed lake, about one mile long, fringed about with green pines, to which we gave the name of Longworth, in honor of Cincinnati's distinguished judge, and to a lovely little green island thickly grown with trees we gave the name of another canoeist left behind, Mr. Empson of Louisville. At the head of Longworth Lake, and in plain view of Empson Island, within a space cleared out of a dense jungle, we made our last camp before reaching the coveted Mississippi. Our stay here was marked in red by the most vindictive attack from mosquitos in all the cruise. No one unacquainted with the Northern Minnesota wilderness in midsummer, or with a region having a similar insect population, can at all imagine the number and fierceness of the ravenous aërial hosts that had beset us all the way from White Earth. In mid-day they keep one constantly alert, while at night they are beyond credible report. They are small, shrewd and persistent. As I lay awake their myriad voices about and above me made a great chorus, really grand and impressive, out of which for a few seconds at a time there came bursts of harmony which I could hardly separate from the idea of a vast, distant chorus of human voices. Against their voracity no ordinary bar is a bar at all. We had gone to their haunts provided with netting which at home gave immunity, but through its meshes these mosquitos inserted their bills, then their heads, then struggled through bodily, and came down upon us like demons. We were dressed in woollens, our hands were in dogskin gloves and our heads and necks in thick calico hoods and capes, but all such protections were naught when those screaming villains had a mind for blood. At one onslaught they would go into the shrinking flesh through two thicknesses of wool and two of cotton, or through a heavy dogskin glove, or through the thick and hardened skin of the hand's palm or the foot's ball, or through a buckskin moccasin and cotton hose—through any protection at our command except a cotton canopy hung wide of our heads and bodies.

Sung and stung out of all endurance by the very centre of that army of the wilderness, we were astir in the grayest of our second Thursday's dawn, and were soon in readiness for our final portage over the crests of the Heights of Land to the river, which out of our long and severe march had become to us a veritable Mecca. Our way was up a gentle range of hills, whose tops, but a few yards wide, divide the waters which flow southward to the great Gulf from those which seek their far northward trend through the Red River of the North. The first division of our party reached the Mississippi before noon with a joy born out of a week's toil and hardship, and in a trice I was drinking of and laving in its swift, bright water. We could hardly realize that in this deep, rushing brook, not more than four or five paces wide, we saw the beginnings of that majestic current which drains half a continent. Soon our second division came up, we ate our last lunch in company, and the Indians, each shaking us by the hand with a grunt and a smile, then going off into the forest with a cheer, left us alone in that vast and uninhabited wilderness. Late in the afternoon we launched our canoes into the little river, and loaded them for our journey to its head, camping about three miles above our point of embarkation.

The next morning we started with light hearts upon what we supposed would be but a short journey to the river's source, to meet an exasperating disappointment. We had made a bargain for transportation from the railway to Itasca Lake or to a point five miles below, all fully diagrammed and understood by correspondence, but found ourselves set down by the employés of the rascally half-breed—who had been careful to leave us at Wild Rice Lake—in an unknown land, six days from civilization, at a point nearly or quite thirty miles below the lake, below a region of rapids and obstructions against which we had especially stipulated, and up which no craft had ever travelled. A mile's work brought us to the beginning of this second series of troubles. Lying across the river at all heights, depths and angles were the tough pine logs we had dreaded, and at every mile or two were tumbling rapids. All that long Friday we took our turns with the axe, lopping off branches that we might squeeze under or shunt over logs; climbing with our stores and boats over great log-drifts held by the grip of the rocky defiles; wading through shoals and dragging our canoes through mud and sand; plunging suddenly into holes that engulfed us to our armpits; paddling astride our decks over pools too deep for wading; chopping and wrenching logs that forbade other means of passage; fighting inch by inch up plunging gorges, down which and over whose rugged boulders the narrowed waters foamed in almost resistless fury and milky foam—on and up, rod by rod, half a mile in the hour, till we came to a weary and desolate camp not two leagues from our breakfasts. There we cooked our suppers and ate in hoods and gloves, fighting mosquitos and black flies for every morsel, speculating as to the morrow's probabilities and discussing the question of victory or defeat. We rose from the night's sleep resolved upon seeing Itasca, and until mid-afternoon fought over again the battles of yesterday, and at last came out upon a smooth, placid stream, up which we paddled with easy swing some nine miles. Then the river narrowed and shallowed, and we again took to our feet upon a beautiful gravelly bottom. At times the way was closed to sight by rushes and wild rice, and we could only beat our way through. At last the water, thickly grown with reeds, broadened and deepened, and a score of paddle-strokes carried us through the green curtain out upon Itasca's beautiful surface, over which we glided, under the shadows of the setting sun, up to Schoolcraft's Island for a Sunday's quiet.