The Seat of Empire

by Charles Carleton Coffin

We shall find the scene repeated on the adjoining farm. Sheltered beneath the grand old forest-trees stands the little log church with a cross upon its roof, and here we see coming down the road the venerable father and teacher of the community, in long black gown and broad-brimmed hat, with a crucifix at his girdle. It is a Catholic community, and they brought their priest with them.

In the morning we ride over smiling prairies, through groves of oak and maple, and behold in the distance a large territory covered with the lithe foliage of the tamarack. Here and there are groves of pine rising like islands above the wide level of the forest.

At times our horses walk on pebbly beaches and splash their hoofs in the limpid waters of the lakes. We pick up agates, carnelians, and bits of bright red porphyry, washed and worn by the waves. Wild swans rear their young in the reeds and marshes bordering the streams. They gracefully glide over the still waters. They are beyond the reach of our rifles, and we would not harm them if we could. There is a good deal of the savage left in a man who, under the plea of sport, can wound or kill a harmless bird or beast that cannot be made to serve his wants. It gives me pleasure to say that our party are not bloodthirsty. Ducks, plover, snipe, wild geese, and sand-hill cranes are served at our table, but they are never shot in wanton

sport.

The stream which we have crossed several times is the Otter-Tail and flows southward into Otter-Tail Lake; issuing from that it runs southwest, then west, then northward, taking the name of the Red River, and pours its waters into Lake Winnipeg. From that great northern reservoir the waters of this western region of Minnesota reach Hudson Bay through Nelson River.

Looking eastward we see gleaming in the morning sunlight the Leaf Lakes, the head-waters of the Crow-Wing, one of the largest western tributaries of the Upper Mississippi.

The neck of land between these lakes and the Otter-Tail is only one mile wide. Here, from time out of mind among the Indians, the transit has been made between the waters flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and into Hudson Bay. When the Jesuit missionaries came here, they found it the great Indian carrying-place.

Mackenzie, Lord Selkirk, and all the early adventurers, came by this route on their way to British America. For a long time it has been a trading-post. The French Jesuit fathers were here a century ago and are here to-day,—not spiritual fathers alone, but according to the flesh as well! The settlement is composed wholly of French Canadians, their Indian wives and copper-colored children. There are ten or a dozen houses, but they are very dilapidated. A little old man with twinkling gray eyes, wearing a battered white hat, comes out to welcome us, while crowds of swarthy children and Indian women gaze at us from the doorways. Another little old man, in a black gown and broad-brimmed hat, with a long chain and crucifix dangling from his girdle, salutes us with true French politeness. He is the priest, and is as seedy as the village itself.

Around the place are several birch-bark Indian huts, and a few lodges of tanned buffalo-hides. Filth, squalor, and degradation are the characteristics of the lodge, and the civilization of the log-houses is but little removed from that of the wigwams.

The French Canadian takes about as readily to the Indian maiden as to one of his own race. He is kinder than the Indian brave, and when he wants a wife he will find the fairest of the maidens ready to listen to his words of love.