Part 6 (2/2)
Many explorations have been made of the region around the head waters of the Mississippi, the reports of which have conveyed to the world attractive information of the country, but information which only approximated to accuracy. In 1806, Lieut. Pike explored the river as far as Turtle Lake, and returned, thinking, good easy man, full surely he had discovered the real source of the river, and yet the source of the river was more than a hundred miles off in another direction.
Lewis and Clarke had ascended the river previously. In 1820, General Ca.s.s, accompanied by Mr. Schoolcraft, explored the river to Ca.s.s Lake; being obliged to stop there on account of the low stage of water which they heard existed a few days' journey beyond. Again, in 1832, Mr.
Schoolcraft, then superintendent of Indian affairs, made another expedition, which resulted in his discovery of the true sources of the river; it being a lake which he named Itasca. It has been said that he manufactured this beautiful word out of the last syllables of veritas and the first syllable of caput (the true head). But I have been told that the word was suggested to his mind by an Indian word signifying breast. Dr. Johnson says, that a traveller in order to bring back knowledge should take knowledge with him. That is, that he should have posted himself up to some extent on the country he visits. I hope it will not require an affidavit for me to prove that I availed myself of the suggestion. But I must say I have found great pleasure and profit in perusing Mr. Schoolcraft's narratives of both his expeditions.
Though he had the encouragement of the government, his undertaking was surrounded by many obstacles and some dangers. His account of the whole country is pleasant and instructive to the reader, and shows that all he saw produced on his mind a favorable impression. The arduous services of this gentleman as an explorer have been of great advantage to the country, and his fine literary talents have given his adventures an historic fame. Not less deserving of applause either have been his efforts to promote the welfare of the Indians. He now lives in affluent circ.u.mstances at Was.h.i.+ngton, and, though suffering under some bodily infirmities, appears (or did when I saw him) to enjoy life with that serene and rational happiness which springs from useful employment, and a consciousness that past opportunities have been improved.
”For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well and e'en the past enjoy.”
There have been other explorations of this part of the country at different times by Messrs. Long, Nicollet, and Pope. M. Nicollet was accompanied and a.s.sisted by Mr. (then Lieutenant) Fremont. The reports made of these explorations afford information which, if extensively known among the people, would tend to direct a larger emigration into the upper part of the territory. They often launch off into exclamations as to the beautiful surface of the country; while their account of native fruits and the bracing climate and fertile soil picture to the imagination all the elements of a home.
M. Nicollet was a foreign gentleman who possessed superior scientific knowledge and a rare zeal to prosecute researches. He made an exploration through the valley of the St. Peter's and the Missouri; and from thence to the sources of the Mississippi, in the year 1839.
The official report which he made is a valuable doc.u.ment, but difficult to be obtained. I shall therefore make a few extracts from it. I should here remark that M. Nicollet died before he had completed the introduction to his report. ”The Mississippi,” he says, ”holds its own from its very origin; for it is not necessary to suppose, as has been done, that Lake Itasca may be supplied with invisible sources, to justify the character of a remarkable stream, which it a.s.sumes at its issue from this lake. There are five creeks that fall into it, formed by innumerable streamlets oozing from the clay-beds at the bases of the hills, that consist of an acc.u.mulation of sand, gravel, and clay, intermixed with erratic fragments; being a more prominent portion of the great erratic deposit previously described, and which here is known by the name of 'Hauteurs des Terres'-- heights of land.
”These elevations are commonly flat at top, varying in height from 85 to 100 feet above the level of the surrounding waters. They are covered with thick forests, in which coniferous plants predominate.
South of Itasca Lake, they form a semicircular region with a boggy bottom, extending to the south-west a distance of several miles; thence these Hauteurs des Terres ascend to the north-west and north; and then, stretching to the north-east and east, through the zone between 47 degrees and 48 degrees of lat.i.tude, make the dividing ridge between the waters that empty into Hudson's Bay and those which discharge themselves into the Gulf of Mexico. The princ.i.p.al group of these Hauteurs des Terres is subdivided into several ramifications, varying in extent, elevation, and course, so as to determine the hydrographical basins of all the innumerable lakes and rivers that so peculiarly characterize this region of country.
”One of these ramifications extends in a southerly direction under the name of Coteau du Grand Bois; and it is this which separates the Mississippi streams from those of the Red River of the North.
”The waters supplied by the north flank of these heights of land-- still on the south side of Lake Itasca-- give origin to the five creeks of which I have spoken above. These are the waters which I consider to be the utmost sources of the Mississippi. Those that flow from the southern side of the same heights, and empty themselves into Elbow Lake, are the utmost sources of the Red River of the North; so that the most remote feeders of Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico are closely approximated to each other.”
Of the country above Crow Wing, he makes the following observations, which are not less interesting than instructive: ”Over the whole route which I traversed after leaving Crow Wing River, the country has a different aspect from that which the banks of the Mississippi above the falls present. The forests are denser and more varied; the soil, which is alternately sandy, gravelly, clayey, and loamy, is, generally speaking, lighter excepting on the sh.o.r.es of some of the larger lakes.
The uplands are covered with white and yellow pines, spruce and birch; and the wet lowlands by the American larch and the willow. On the slopes of sandy hills, the American aspen, the canoe birch (white birch), with a species of birch of dwarfish growth, the alder, and wild rose, extend to the very margin of the river. On the borders of the larger lakes, where the soil is generally better, we find the sugar maple, the black and bar oaks (also named overcup white oak, but differing from the white oak), the elm, ash, lime tree, &c. Generally speaking, however, this woodland does not extend back farther than a mile from the lakes. The white cedar, the hemlock, spruce, pine, and fir, are occasionally found; but the red cedar is scarce throughout this region, and none, perhaps, are to be seen but on islands of those lakes called by the Indians Red Cedar Lakes. The shrubbery consists princ.i.p.ally of the wild rose, hawthorn, and wild plum; and raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and cranberries are abundant.
”The aspect of the country is greatly varied by hills, dales, copses, small prairies, and a great number of lakes; the whole of which I do not pretend to have laid down on my map. * * * * The lakes to which I have just alluded are distributed in separate groups, or are arranged in prolonged chains along the rivers, and not unfrequently attached to each other by gentle rapids. It has seemed to me that they diminish in extent on both sides of the Mississippi, as we proceed southwardly, as far as 43 degrees of north lat.i.tude; and this observation extends to the Arctic region, commencing at Bear's Lake; or Slave Lake, Winnipeg Lake, &c. It may be further remarked that the basins of these lakes have a sufficient depth to leave no doubt that they will remain characteristic features of the country for a long time to come.
Several species of fish abound in them. The white fish (Corregonus albus) is found in all the deep lakes west of the Mississippi-- and, indeed, from Lake Erie to the Polar Sea. That which is taken in Leech Lake is said by amateurs to be more highly flavored than even that of Lake Superior, and weighs from three to ten pounds.* * * Of all the Indian nations that I have visited, the Chippewas, inhabiting the country about the sources of the Mississippi, are decidedly the most favored. Besides their natural resources (to which I have already referred) of fish, wild rice, and maple sugar, with the addition of an abundance of game, the climate is found to be well adapted to the culture of corn, wheat, barley, oats, and pulse. The potato is of superior quality to that of the Middle States of the Union. In a trading point of view, the hunt is very profitable. The bear, the deer and elk, the wolf, the fox, the wolverine, the fisher racc.o.o.n, muskrat, mink, otter, marten, weasel, and a few remaining beavers, are the princ.i.p.al articles of this traffic.” (pp. 58, 64.) To those who are desirous of perusing this valuable report, and who have access to the congressional doc.u.ments, I would say that it may be found in Senate Doc.u.ment 237, 2d Session of 26th Congress.
LETTER X.
VALLEY OF THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH.
Climate of Minnesota-- The settlement at Pembina-- St. Joseph-- Col.
Smith's expedition-- Red River of the North-- Fur trade-- Red River Settlement-- The Hudson's Bay Company-- Ex-Gov. Ramsey's observations-- Dacotah.
CROW WING, October, 1856.
A CELEBRATED geographer of the first century wrote, ”Germany is indeed habitable, but is uninhabited on account of the cold.” I am not so certain, but some people have a similar idea of the upper portion of Minnesota. If there are any, however, thus distrustful of its climate, they probably live out of the territory. I have no means of knowing what the climate is here in winter, except from hearsay and general principles. It seems to be an approved theory, that the farther we approach the west in a northern lat.i.tude the milder becomes the winter. The stage-drivers tell me that the snow does not fall to such a depth as in the northern part of New England; that the weather is tolerably uniform; and that the roads are at all times kept open and much travelled. After all, it is a great way before we come to the home of the Esquimaux, and the desert of ice where Sir John Franklin perished.
I will here subjoin the following extract from a letter addressed to Gov. Stephens by the Hon. Henry M. Rice, the able delegate from Minnesota. It is dated 3d June, 1854:
”Navigation of the Mississippi River closes from the 10th to the 25th of November, and opens from the 1st to the 10th of April. That of the Red River of the North closes from the 1st to 16th November, and opens from 10th to 25th April. I have often travelled in the winter from St.
Paul to Crow Wing, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, with a single horse and sled, without a track, and have never found the snow deep enough to impede my progress. I have also gone from Crow Wing, beyond the head waters of the Mississippi, to the waters of the Hudson's Bay, on foot and without snow-shoes. I spent one entire winter travelling through that region, and never found the snow over eighteen inches deep, and seldom over nine inches.
”For several years I had trading-posts extending from Lake Superior to the Red River of the North, from 46 degrees to 49 degrees north lat.i.tude, and never found the snow so deep as to prevent supplies being transported from one post to another with horses. One winter, north of Crow Wing, say 47 degrees north lat.i.tude, I wintered about sixty head of horses and cattle without giving them food of any kind except such as they could procure themselves under the snow. Between the 45th and 49th degrees north lat.i.tude, the snow does not fall so deep as it does between the 40th and 45th degrees; this is easily accounted for upon the same principle that in the fall they have frosts much earlier near the 40th than they do near the 45th degree. I say this in reference to the country watered by the Mississippi River.
Owing to its alt.i.tude the atmosphere is dry beyond belief, which accounts for the absence of frosts in the fall, and for the small quant.i.ty of snow that falls in a country so far north. Voyageurs traverse the territory from Lake Superior to the Missouri the entire winter with horses and sleds, having to make their own roads, and yet with heavy loads are not detained by snow. Lumbermen in great numbers winter in the pine regions of Minnesota with their teams, and I have never heard of their finding the snow too deep to prosecute their labors. I have known several winters when the snow at no time was over six inches deep.”
The Hon. H. H. Sibley, ex-delegate from Minnesota, in a letter dated at Mendota says: ”As our country is for the most part composed of prairie, it is of course much exposed to the action of the winds. It is, however, a peculiarity of our climate, that calms prevail during the cold weather of the winter months; consequently, the snow does not drift to anything like the extent experienced in New England or northern New York. I have never believed that railroad communication in this territory would be seriously impeded by the depth or drift of snow, unless, perhaps, in the extreme northern portion of it.” (See Explorations and Surveys for the Pacific Railroad, I., 400.)
A few facts in regard to the people who live four or five hundred miles to the north, will best ill.u.s.trate the nature of the climate and its adaptedness to agriculture.
It is common to say that settlements have not extended beyond Crow Wing. This is only technically true. There is a settlement at Pembina, where the dividing line between British America and the United States crosses the Red River of the North. It didn't extend there from our frontier, sure enough. If it extended from anywhere it must have been from the north, or along the confines of that mystic region called Rainy Lake. Pembina is said to have about 600 inhabitants. It is situated on the Pembina River. It is an Indian-French word meaning cranberry. Men live there who were born there, and it is in fact an old settlement. It was founded by British subjects, who thought they had located on British soil. The greater part of its inhabitants are half-breeds, who earn a comfortable livelihood in fur hunting and in farming. It sends two representatives and a councillor to the territorial legislature. It is 460 miles north-west of St. Paul, and 330 miles distant from this town. Notwithstanding the distance, there is considerable communication between the places. West of Pembina, about thirty miles, is a settlement called St. Joseph, situated N. of a large mythological body of water called Miniwakan, or Devil's Lake; and is one of the points where Col. Smith's expedition was intending to stop. This expedition to which I refer, started out from Fort Snelling in the summer, to explore the country on both sides of the Red River of the North as far as Pembina, and to report to the war department the best points for the establishment of a new military post. It is expected that Col. Smith will return by the first of next month; and it is probable he will advise the erection of a post at Pembina. When that is done, if it is done, its effect will be to draw emigrants from the Red River settlement into Minnesota.
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