Once more we were steaming westward toward the land of the Dacotahs. That night we all sat up till after midnight to see the last of our lake, for in the morning Duluth would be in sight. It was a night never to be forgotten. The idle words and deeds of my companions have faded from my mind, but never will the memory of the bright lake rippling under that moonlit sky.
A city picturesquely situated on the side of a hill which overlooks the lake and rises gradually toward the northwest, reaching the height of six hundred feet a mile from the shore, with a river on one side. That is Duluth. The city takes its name from Juan du Luth, a French officer, who visited the region in 1679. In 1860 there were only seventy white inhabitants in the place, and in 1869 the number had not much increased. The selection of the village as the eastern terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad gave it an impetus, and now Duluth is a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, and rapidly growing. The harbor is a good one, and is open about two hundred days in the year. Six regular lines of steamers run to Chicago, Cleveland, Canadian ports, and ports on the south shore of Lake Superior. The commerce of Duluth, situated as it is in the vicinity of the mineral districts on both shores of the lake, surrounded by a well-timbered country, and offering the most convenient outlet for the products of the wheat region further west, is of growing importance. In half a century Duluth will be outranked in wealth and population by no more than a dozen cities in America.
Our stay at Duluth was protracted many days. One finds himself at home in this new Western city, and there are a thousand ways in which to amuse yourself. If you are disposed for a walk, there are any number of delightful woodpaths leading to famous bits of beach where you may sit and dream the livelong day without fear of interruption or notice. If you would try camping-out, there are guides and canoes right at your hand, and the choice of scores of beautiful and delightful spots within easy reach of your hotel or along the shore of the lake and its numerous beautiful islands, or as far away into the forest as you care to penetrate. Lastly, if piscatorially inclined, here is a boathouse with every kind of boat from the steam-yacht down to the birch canoe, and there is the lake, full of "lakers," sturgeon, whitefish, and speckled trout, some of the latter weighing from thirty to forty pounds apiece,—a condition of things alike satisfactory and tempting to every owner of a rod and line.
The guides, of whom there are large numbers to be found at Duluth, as indeed at all of the northern border towns, are a class of men too interesting and peculiar to be passed over without more than a cursory notice. These men are mostly French-Canadians and Indians, with now and then a native, and for hardihood, skill, and reliability, cannot be surpassed by any other similar class of men the world over. They are usually men of many parts, can act equally well as guide, boatman, baggage-carrier, purveyor, and cook. They are respectful and chivalrous: no woman, be she old or young, fair or faded, fails to receive the most polite and courteous treatment at their hands, and with these qualities they possess a manly independence that is as far removed from servility as forwardness. Some of these men are strikingly handsome, with shapely statuesque figures that recall the Antinous and the Apollo Belvidere. Their life is necessarily a hard one, exposed as they are to all sorts of weather and the dangers incidental to their profession. At a comparatively early age they break down, and extended excursions are left to the younger and more active members of the fraternity.
Camping-out, provided the weather is reasonably agreeable, is one of the most delightful and healthful ways to spend vacation. It is a sort of woodman's or frontier life. It means living in a tent, sleeping on boughs or leaves, cooking your own meals, washing your own dishes and clothes perhaps, getting up your own fuel, making your own fire, and foraging for your own provender. It means activity, variety, novelty, and fun alive; and the more you have of it the more you like it; and the longer you stay the less willing you are to give it up. There is a freedom in it that you do not get elsewhere. All the stiff formalties of conventional life are put aside: you are left free to enjoy yourself as you choose. All in all, it is the very best way we know to enjoy a "glorious vacation."
At Duluth, at Sault de Ste. Marie, at Mackinaw, at Saginaw, we wandered away days at a time, with nothing but our birch canoe, rifles, and fishing-rods, and for provisions, hard bread, pork, potatoes, coffee, tea, rice, butter, and sugar, closely packed. Any camper-out can make himself comfortable with an outfit as simple as the one named. How memory clings around some of those bright spots we visited! I pass over them again, in thought, as I write these lines, longing to nestle amid them forever.
Following along the coast, now in small yachts hired for the occasion, now in a birch canoe of our own, we passed from one village to another. Wherever we happened to be at night, we encamped. Many a time it was on a lonely shore. Standing at sunset on a pleasant strand, more than once we saw the glow of the vanished sun behind the western mountains or the western waves, darkly piled in mist and shadow along the sky; near at hand, the dead pine, mighty in decay, stretching its ragged arms athwart the burning heavens, the crow perched on its top like an image carved in jet; and aloft, the night-hawk, circling in his flight, and, with a strange whining sound, diving through the air each moment for the insects he makes his prey.
But all good things, as well as others, have an end. The season drew to a close at last. August nights are chilly for sleeping in tents. Our flitting must cease, and our thoughts and steps turn homeward. But a few days are still left us. At Buffalo once more we go to see the Falls. Then by boat to Hamilton, thence to Kingston at the foot of the lake, and so on through the Thousand Isles to Montreal, and finally to Quebec,—a tour as fascinating in its innumerable and singularly wild and beautiful "sights" as heart could desire.