Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

The ice broke up in April, and by the middle of May the Indians began to come in with their furs, so that by the close of the spring Henry found himself with a hundred and fifty packs of beaver, weighing a hundred pounds each, besides twenty-five packs of otter and marten skins. These he took to Michilimackinac, accompanied by fifty canoes of Indians, who still had a hundred packs of beaver that they did not sell. It appears, therefore, that Henry’s ten thousand pounds of beaver brought him fifty per cent. profit in beaver, besides the otter and the marten skins which he had.

On his way back he went up the Ontonagan River to see the celebrated mass of copper there, which he estimated to weigh no less than five tons. So pure was it that with an axe he chopped off a piece weighing a hundred pounds. This great mass of copper, which had been worked at for no one knows how long by Indians and by early explorers, lay there for eighty years after Henry saw it; and finally, in 1843, was removed to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. It was then estimated to weigh between three and four tons, and the cost of transporting it to the national capital was about $3,500.

The following winter was passed at Sault Sainte-Marie, and was rather an unhappy one, as the fishery failed, and there was great suffering from hunger. Canadians and Indians gathered there from the surrounding country, driven in by lack of food. Among the incidents of the winter was the arrival of a young man who had been guilty of cannibalism. He was killed by the Indians, not so much as punishment, as from the fear that he would kill and eat some of their children.

A journey to a neighboring bay resulted in no great catch of fish, and returning to the Sault, Henry started for Michilimackinac. At the first encampment, an hour’s fishing procured them seven trout, of from ten to twenty pounds’ weight. A little later they met a camp of Indians who had fish, and shared with them; and the following day Henry killed a caribou, by which they camped and on which they subsisted for two days.

The following winter Henry stopped at Michipicoten, on the north side of Lake Superior, and about a hundred and fifty miles from the Sault. Here there were a few people known as Gens des Terres, a tribe of Algonquins, living in middle Canada, and ranging from the Athabasca country east to Lake Temiscamingue. A few of them still live near the St. Maurice River, in the Province of Quebec. These people, though miserably poor, and occupying a country containing very few animals, had a high reputation for honesty and worth. Therefore, Henry gave to every man credit for one hundred beaver skins, and to every woman thirty—a very large credit.

There was some game in this country, a few caribou, and some hares and partridges. The hills were well wooded with sugar-maples, and from these, when spring came, Henry made sugar; and for a time this was their sole provision, each man consuming a pound a day, desiring no other food, and being visibly nourished by the sugar. Soon after this, wildfowl appeared in such abundance that subsistence for fifty could without difficulty be shot daily by one man, but this lasted only for a week, by which time the birds all departed. By the end of May all to whom Henry had advanced goods returned, and of the two thousand skins for which he had given them credit, not thirty remained unpaid. The small loss that he did suffer was occasioned by the death of one of the Indians, whose family brought all the skins of which he died possessed, and offered to contribute among themselves the balance.

The following winter was also to be passed at Michipicoten, and in the month of October, after all the Indians had received their goods and had gone away, Henry set out for the Sault on a visit. He took little provision, only a quart of corn for each person.

On the first night they camped on an island sacred to Nanibojou, one of the Chippewa gods, and failed to offer the tobacco which an Indian would always have presented to the spirit. In the night a violent storm arose which continued for three days. When it abated on the third day they went to examine the net which they had set for fish, and found it gone. The wind was ahead to return to Michipicoten, and they steered for the Sault; but that night the wind shifted and blew a gale for nine days following. They soon began to starve, and though Henry hunted faithfully, he killed nothing more than two snowbirds. One of his men informed him that the other two had proposed to kill and eat a young woman, whom they were taking to the Sault, and when taxed with the proposition, these two men had the hardihood to acknowledge it. The next morning, Henry, still searching for food, found on a rock the tripe de roche, a lichen, which, when cooked, yields a jelly which will support life. The discovery of this food, on which they supported themselves thereafter, undoubtedly saved the life of the poor woman. When they embarked on the evening of the ninth day they were weak and miserable; but, luckily, the next morning, meeting two canoes of Indians, they received a gift of fish, and at once landed to feast on them.

In the spring of 1769, and for some years afterward, Henry turned his attention more or less to mines. He visited the Ile de Maurepas, said to contain shining rocks and stones of rare description, but was much disappointed in the island, which seemed commonplace enough. A year later Mr. Baxter, with whom Henry had formed a partnership for copper mining, returned, and during the following winter, at Sault Sainte-Marie, they built vessels for navigating the lakes. Henry had heard of an island (Caribou Island) in Lake Superior described as covered with a heavy yellow sand like gold-dust, and guarded by enormous snakes. With Mr. Baxter he searched for this island and finally found it, but neither yellow sands nor snakes nor gold. Hawks there were in abundance, and one of them picked Henry’s cap from his head. There were also caribou, and they killed thirteen, and found many complete and undisturbed skeletons. Continuing their investigations into the mines about the lakes, they found abundant copper ore, and some supposed to contain silver. But their final conclusion was that the cost of carrying the copper ore to Montreal must exceed its marketable value.

In June, 1775, Henry left Sault Sainte-Marie with four large canoes and twelve small ones, carrying goods and provisions to the value of three thousand pounds sterling. He passed west, over the Grand Portage, entered Lac à la Pluie, passed down to the Lake of the Woods, and finally reached Lake Winipegon. Here there were Crees, variously known as Christinaux, Kinistineaux, Killistinoes, and Killistinaux. Lake Winipegon is sometimes called the Lake of the Crees. These people were primitive. Almost entirely naked, the whole body was painted with red ochre; the head was wholly shaved, or the hair was plucked out, except a spot on the crown, where it grew long and was rolled and gathered into a tuft; the ears were pierced, and filled with bones of fishes and land animals. The women, on the other hand, had long hair, which was gathered into a roll on either side of the head above the ear, and was covered with a piece of skin, painted or ornamented with beads of various colors. The traditions of the Cheyennes of to-day point back to precisely similar methods of dressing the hair of the women and of painting the men.