Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

At the great Sioux camp, which he came to on this river, and which he estimated to contain a thousand people, most of whom had never seen a white man, he was most hospitably received. He spent the winter with them, studying their language, acquiring so far as possible a knowledge of the geography of the country, and at last, with a considerable portion of the camp, returning down the river to the Great Cave, and to the burial ground which lay near it. Before parting with the Sioux he held a council with them, at which long speeches were made by both Englishman and Indians, and finally Carver left them to return to La Prairie du Chien, where there were some traders from whom he purchased goods for his farther journey.

Among the places now well known which Carver visited, was what he calls the Red Mountain, from which the Indians get a sort of red stone out of which they hew the bowls of their pipes. This is, no doubt, the pipestone quarry, described by Catlin, and then owned by the Sioux Indians, which has been purchased by the government as a park. Carver says, also, that in some of these parts is found a black, hard clay, or rather stone, of which, the Indians make their family utensils.

Carver was much impressed by the beauties of the country through which the river St. Pierre [Minnesota River] flowed; of which he says: “Wild rice grows here in great abundance; and every part is filled with trees, bending under their loads of fruit, such as plums, grapes, and apples; the meadows are covered with hops, and many sorts of vegetables; whilst the ground is stored with useful roots, with angelica, spikenard, and ground-nuts as large as hen’s eggs. At a little distance from the sides of the river are eminences, from which you have views that cannot be exceeded even by the most beautiful of those I have already described; amidst these are delightful groves, and such amazing quantities of maples, that they would produce sugar sufficient for any number of inhabitants.”

Carver at length reached La Prairie du Chien, and after attending to various matters there, returned up the Mississippi to the place where the Chippewa River enters it, a little below Lake Pepin. Here he engaged an Indian pilot, and instructed him to steer toward the Ottowaw Lakes, which lie near the head of that river. About thirty miles from the mouth, Carver took the easternmost of the two branches and passed along through the wide, gently flowing stream. “The country adjoining to the river,” he says, “for about sixty miles, is very level, and on its banks lie fine meadows, where larger droves of buffaloes and elks were feeding, than I had observed in any other part of my travels. The track between the two branches of this river is termed the Road of War between the Chipeway and Naudowessie Indians.” Near the head of the stream he came upon a Chippewa town, the houses built after the Indian manner, and having neat plantations behind them. He then carried over to the head of the river St. Croix, descended one of the branches, and then ascended another; and on both streams he discovered several mines of virgin copper. Then carrying across a height of land and descending another stream, he found himself on Lake Superior, and coasted along its western shores until he reached the Grand Portage, between Lake Superior and Lac la Pluie, or Rainy Lake.

Here were met a large party of Killistinoe and Assinipoil Indians, “with their respective kings and their families.” They had come to this place to meet the traders from the east, who were accustomed to make this their road to the north-west. From these Indians Carver received considerable geographical information about the country to the westward, much of which, however, is too vague to be very valuable. Many of the great lakes to the westward were mentioned and described, and some of them are readily recognized. Such are Lake Winnepeek, Lac du Bois, and Lac la Pluye, or Rainy Lake. Of the country about Lake Bourbon and Lake Winnepeek it was said that there were found some buffalo of small size, which were fat and good in the latter part of the summer. This difference in size Carver attributes to their northerly situation; “just as the black cattle of the northern parts of Great Britain differ from English oxen.” But it is quite probable that these “small buffalo” may have been musk-oxen, and their location wrong.

“These Indians informed me that to the northwest of Lake Winnepeek lies another whose circumference vastly exceeded any they had given me an account of. They describe it as much larger than Lake Superior. But as it appears to be so far to the northwest, I should imagine that it was not a lake, but rather the Archipelago or broken waters that form the communication between Hudson’s Bay and the northern parts of the Pacific Ocean.”

As already stated, Carver believed that the headwaters of the Missouri were not far from the headwaters of his St. Pierre River. The Indians told him that they frequently crossed over from the head of that stream to the Missouri. The nearest water to the head of the Minnesota River is Big Sioux River in Dakota, which is, in fact, a tributary of the Missouri.

The ethnological information there gathered was as little trustworthy as that concerning the geography of the more distant parts. For example, it is said that in the country belonging to the Pawnees, and the Pawnawnees, nations inhabiting some branches of the Messorie River, mandrakes are frequently found, a species of root resembling human beings of both sexes; and that these are more perfect than such as are discovered about the Nile in Nether-Ethiopia.

“A little to the northwest of the heads of the Messorie and the St. Pierre, the Indians further told me, that there was a nation rather smaller and whiter than the neighboring tribes, who cultivate the ground, and (as far as I could gather from their expressions), in some measure, the arts. To this account they added that some of the nations who inhabit those parts that lie to the west of the Shining Mountains, have gold so plenty among them that they make their most common utensils of it. These mountains (which I shall describe more particularly hereafter) divide the waters that fall into the South Sea from those that run into the Atlantic.

“The people dwelling near them are supposed to be some of the different tribes that were tributary to the Mexican kings, and who fled from their native country to seek an asylum in these parts, about the time of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, more than two centuries ago.” After a brief discussion of the reasons which may have led these supposed immigrants, and the Winnebagoes to leave their southern home for the north, Carver speaks at some length of the Shining or Rocky Mountains, just mentioned.