Commerce, we observe, is beginning to show itself here, but by the few vessels we have met, while traversing these broad and stormy seas, and their little tonnage, it seems as if they were stealthily making their way into regions of doubtful profit at least. The fur trade employs most of these, either in bringing up supplies, or carrying away its avails. La Salle, when, in 1679, he built the first vessel on the lakes, and sent it up to traffic in furs, was greatly in advance of his age; but he could hardly have anticipated that his countrymen should have adhered so long to the tedious and dangerous mode of making these long voyages in the bark canoe. It is memorable in the history of the region, that last year (1819) witnessed the first arrival of a steamer at Michilimackinac. It bore the characteristic name of Walk-in-the-water,[ [147] the name of a Wyandot chief of some local celebrity in Detroit, during the last war.
The astonishment produced upon the Indian mind by the arrival of this steamer has been described to us as very great; but, from a fuller acquaintance with the Indian character, we do not think him prone to this emotion. He gazes on new objects with imperturbability, and soon explains what he does not understand by what he does. Perceiving heat to be the primary cause of the motion, without knowing how that motion is generated, he calls the steamboat Ishcoda Nabequon, i. e. fire-vessel, and remains profoundly ignorant of the motive power of steam. The story of the vessel's being drawn by great fishes from the sea, is simply one of those fictions which white loungers about the Indian posts fabricate to supply the wants of travellers in search of the picturesque.
The winds seem to be unloosed from their mythologic bags, on the upper lakes, with the autumnal equinox; and we found them ready for their labors early in September; but it was not till the 13th of that month, after a detention of two days, that we found it practicable for canoes to leave the island. Mustering now a flotilla of three canoes, we embarked at three o'clock P.M., with a wind from the east, being moderately adverse, but soon got under the shelter of the island of Boisblanc; we passed along its inner shore about ten miles, till reaching Point aux Pins—so named from the prevalence here of the pinus resinosa. At this point, the wind, stretching openly through this passage from the east, compelled us to land and encamp. The next day, we were confined to the spot by adverse winds. While thus detained, Captain Douglass, under shelter of the island, returned to Mackinac, in a light canoe, doubly manned, for something he had left. When he returned, the wind had so far abated that we embarked, and crossed the separating channel, of about four miles, to the peninsula, and encamped near the River Cheboigan.[ [148] This was a tedious beginning of our voyage to Detroit; the first day had carried us only ten miles, the second but four.
We were now to retraverse the shores of the Huron, along which we had encountered such delays in our outward passage, and the men applied themselves to the task with that impulse which all partake of when returning from a long journey. Winds we could not control, but every moment of calm was improved. Paddle and song were plied by them late and early. A violent rain-storm happened during the night, but it ceased at daybreak, when we embarked and traversed a coast line of forty-four miles, encamping at Presque Isle. Rain fell copiously during the night, and the unsettled and changing state of the atmosphere kept us in perpetual agitation during the day. Notwithstanding these changes, we embarked at five o'clock in the morning (16th), and, by dint of perseverance, made thirty miles. We slept on the west cape of Thunder Bay. Next morning, we landed a few moments on the Idol Island, in Thunder Bay, and, continuing along the sandy shore of the au sauble, or Iosco coast, entered Saganaw Bay, and encamped, on its west shore, at Sandy Point. Indians of the Chippewa language were encountered at this spot, whose manners and habits appeared to be quite modified by long contact with the white race.
The morning of the 18th (Sept.) proved fair, which enabled us to cross the bay, taking the island of Shawangunk in our course, where we stopped an hour, and re-examined its calcedonies and other minerals. We then proceeded across to Oak Point, on its eastern shore, and, coasting down to, and around, the precipitous cliffs of Point aux Barques, encamped in one of its deeply-indented coves, having made, during the day, forty-two miles.
The formation of this noted promontory consists of an ash-colored, not very closely-compacted sandstone, through original crevices in which the waves have scooped out entrances like vast corridors. In one of these, which has a sandy beach at its terminus, we encamped. He who has travelled along the shores of the lakes, and encamped on their borders, having his ears, while on his couch, close to the formation of sand, is early and very exactly apprised of the varying state of the wind. The deep-sounding roar of the waves, like the deep diapason of a hundred organs, plays over a gamut, whose rising or falling scale tells him, immediately, whether he can put his frail canoe before the wind, or must remain prisoner on the sand, in the sheltering nook where night overtakes him. These notes, sounded between two long lines of cavernous rocks, told us, long before daybreak, of a strong head wind that fixed us to the spot for the day. I amused myself by gathering some small species of the unio and the anadonta. Captain Douglass busied himself with astronomical observations. We all sallied out, during the day, over the sandy ridges of modern drift, in which the pinus resinosa had firmly imbedded its roots, and into sphagnous depressions beyond, where we had, in the June previous, found the sarracenia purpurea, which is the cococo mukazin, or oral's moccasin of the Indians. Here we found, as at more westerly points on the lake, the humble juniperus prostrata, and, in more favorable spots, the ribes lacustre.[ [149]
It was stated to us at Michilimackinac, that Lake Huron had fallen one foot during the last year. It was also added that the decrease in the lake waters had been noticed for many years, and that there were, in fact, periodical depressions and refluxes at periods of seven and fourteen years. A little reflection will, however, render it manifest that, in a region of country so extensive and thinly populated, observations must be vaguely made, and that many circumstances may operate to produce deception with respect to the permanent diminution or rise of water, as the prevalence of winds, the quantity of rain and snow which influences these basins, and the periodical distribution of solar heat. It has already been remarked, while at the mouth of Fox River, that a fluctuation, resembling a tide, has been improperly thought to exist there, and, indeed, similar phenomena appear to influence the Baltic. Philosophers have not been wanting, who have attributed similar appearances to the ocean itself. "It has been asserted," observed Cuvier, "that the sea is subject to a continual diminution of its level, and proofs of this are said to have been observed in some parts of the shores of the Baltic. Whatever may have been the cause of these appearances, we certainly know that nothing of the kind has been observed upon our coast, and, consequently, that there has been no general lowering of the waters of the ocean. The most ancient seaports still have their quays and other erections, at the same height above the level of the sea, as at their first construction. Certain general movements have been supposed in the sea, from east to west, or in other directions; but nowhere has any person been able to ascertain their effects with the least degree of precision."[ [150]
On the next day (20th) the wind abated, so as to permit us, at six o'clock A.M., to issue from our place of detention; but we soon found the equilibrium of the atmosphere had been too much disturbed to rely on it. At seven o'clock, and again at nine o'clock, we were driven ashore; but as soon as it slackened we were again upon the lake; it finally settled to a light head wind, against which we urged our way diligently, until eight o'clock in the evening. The point where we encamped was upon that long line of deposit of the erratic block, or boulder stratum, of which the White Rock is one of the largest known pieces. At four o'clock the next morning, we were again in motion, dancing up and down on the blue waves; but after proceeding six miles the wind drove us from the lake, and we again encamped on the boulder stratum, where we passed the entire day. Nothing is more characteristic of the upper lake geology, than the frequency and abundance of these boulders. The causes which have removed them, at old periods, from their parent bed, were doubtless oceanic; for the area embraced is too extensive to admit of merely local action; but we know of no concentration of oceanic currents, of sufficient force, to bear up these heavy masses, over such extensive surfaces, without the supporting media of ice-floes. The boulders and pebbles are often driven as the moraines before glacial bodies, and there are not wanting portions of rock surface, in the west, which are deeply grooved or scratched by the pressing boulders. The crystallized peaks of the Little Rocks, above St. Anthony's Falls, have been completely polished by them.—Vide p. [149].
The next morning (22d) we were released from our position on this bleak drift-coast, although the wind was still moderately ahead, and after toiling twelve hours adown the closing shores of the lake, we reached its foot, and entered the River St. Clair. Halting a few moments at Fort Gratiot, we found it under the command of Lieut. James Watson Webb, who was, however, absent at the moment. Two miles below, at the mouth of Black River, we met this officer, who had just returned from an excursion up the Black River, where he had laid in a supply of fine watermelons, with which he liberally supplied us. From this spot, we descended the river seven miles, to Elk Island, on which we encamped at twilight, having made fifty-seven miles during the day. Glad to find ourselves out of the reach of the lake winds, and of Eolus, and all his hosts, against which we may be said to have fought our way from Michilimackinac, and animated with the prospect of soon terminating our voyage, we surrounded our evening board with unwonted spirits and glee. Supper being dispatched, with many a joke, and terminated with a song in full chorus, and the men having carefully repaired our canoes, it was determined to employ the night in descending the placid river, and at nine o'clock P.M. all was ready and we again embarked. Never did men more fully appreciate the melody of the Irish bard:—