[26] Schoolcraft, Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley, 313 ff.
[27] Schoolcraft, Personal Memoirs of a Residence of Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes on the American Frontiers, 179-80.
The conditions encountered by John Tanner in a journey from Chicago down the Illinois River in the year 1820[28] were similar to those described by Schoolcraft the following year. Tanner was traveling from Mackinac to St. Louis in a birch-bark canoe. Some Indians who were accompanying him turned back before reaching Chicago, on receiving from others whom they met discouraging accounts of the stage of the water in the Illinois. Tanner, however, persevered in his enterprise. After a period of illness at Chicago he engaged a Frenchman, who had just returned from hauling some boats across the portage, to take him across also. The Frenchman agreed to transport Tanner sixty miles, and if his horses, which were much worn from the previous long journey, could hold out, one hundred and twenty miles, the length of the portage at the present stage of water. With his canoe in the Frenchman's cart and Tanner himself riding a horse belonging to the latter, the overland journey began. Before the first sixty-mile stage had been completed the Frenchman became ill. He turned back, therefore, and Tanner and his one companion attempted to put their canoe in the water and continue their journey. The water was so low that the members of the party themselves were compelled to walk, the men propelling the canoe by walking, one at the bow and the other at the stern. After three miles had been laboriously traversed in this fashion a Pottawatomie Indian was engaged to take the baggage and Tanner's children on horseback as far as the mouth of the Yellow Ochre River,[29] while Tanner and his companion continued to propel the now lightened canoe as before. On reaching the Yellow Ochre a sufficient depth of water was found to permit the further descent of the Illinois in the loaded canoe.
[28] Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, 256-59. This work will be cited henceforth as Tanner's Narrative.
[29] The similarity of names and distance from Chicago render it probable that Tanner here refers to the Vermilion River.
Perhaps the most interesting account of the passage of the portage in the dry season, and in some respects the most detailed, is the one contained in the autobiography of Gurdon S. Hubbard.[30] Beginning with 1818, for several years, with a single exception, Hubbard accompanied the Illinois "brigade" of the American Fur Company on its annual autumnal trip from Mackinac by way of Lake Michigan and the Chicago Portage to the lower Illinois River. Only the first crossing of the portage, in October, 1818, is described in detail. Leaving Chicago the party, comprising about a dozen boat crews, camped a day on the South Branch near the present commencement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, preparing to pass the boats through Mud Lake to the Des Plaines. Mud Lake drained both ways, into the Des Plaines, and through a narrow, crooked channel into the South Branch, and only in very wet seasons, Hubbard states, did it contain water enough to float an empty boat. The mud was very deep and the lake was surrounded by an almost impenetrable growth of wild rice and grass.
[30] Hubbard, Life, 39-41.
From the South Branch the empty boats were pulled up the channel leading from Mud Lake. In many places where there was a hard bottom and absence of water they were placed on short rollers, and in this way were propelled along until the lake was reached. Here mud, thick and deep, was encountered, but only at rare intervals was there any water. Four men stayed in the boat while six or eight more waded in the mud alongside. The former were equipped with boat-poles to the ends of which forked branches of trees had been fastened. By pushing with these against the hummocks, while the men in the mud lifted and shoved, the boat was jerked along. The men in the mud frequently sank to their waists, and at times were forced to cling to the boat to prevent going over their heads. Their limbs were covered with bloodsuckers which caused intense agony for several days, and sleep at night was rendered hopeless by the swarms of mosquitoes which assailed them. Yet three consecutive days of toil from dawn until dark under such conditions were required to pass all the boats through Mud Lake and reach the Des Plaines River.
The passage down the Des Plaines and the Illinois as far as the mouth of Fox River consumed almost three weeks more. Until Cache Island was reached the journey was comparatively easy, although even in this portion of the Des Plaines progress was frequently interrupted by the necessity of making portages or passing the boats along on rollers.[31] From Cache Island to the Illinois River the goods were carried on the men's backs most of the way, while the lightened boats were pulled over the shallow places, often being placed on poles and thus dragged over the rocks and shoals. In the autumn of 1823 Hubbard was sent to a post on the Iroquois River. To shorten his journey and "avoid the delays and hardships of the old route by way of Mud Lake and the Des Plaines" he resolved to travel to his destination by way of the St. Joseph Portage and the Kankakee River. A year later he was placed in charge of the Illinois River posts of the American Fur Company. He thereupon proceeded to execute a plan he had long urged upon his predecessor. The boats were unloaded on their return from Mackinac to Chicago, and scuttled in the swamp to insure their safety until they should be needed for the return voyage to Mackinac laden with furs the following spring. The goods and furs were transported between Chicago and the Indian hunting-grounds on pack horses. Thus "the long, tedious, and difficult passage" through Mud Lake into and down the Des Plaines was avoided.
[31] Ibid.