Sir John Richardson - Arctic Searching Expedition (Sir John Richardson) - comprehensive & illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

The case is otherwise with the Chippeways, who live within the Company's territories. The vicinity of the rival United States Fur Company's establishments; the vigorous competition which is carried on between them and the Hudson's Bay Company, in prosecution of which spirituous liquors are dispensed by both parties liberally to the natives; and the abundance of Folle avoine on Rainy River and the River Winipeg, with the plentiful supply of sturgeon obtained from these waters, rendering the natives independent of either party, have had a demoralising effect, and neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic missionaries have been able to make any impression upon them. One party of these Indians, from whom we purchased a supply of sturgeon on Rainy River, are briefly characterised in my notes, made on the spot, as being "fat, saucy, dirty, and odorous." A Roman Catholic church, erected some years ago on the banks of the Winipeg, has been abandoned, with the clearing around it, on account of the want of success of the priest in his endeavours to convert the natives; and neither the Hudson's Bay Company nor the United States people have been able to extinguish the deadly feud existing between the Chippeways and Sioux, nor to restrain their war parties.

Very recently the Chippeways of Lake Superior, through some oversight in the Canadian government in not making arrangements with them at the proper time, organised a war party against the mining village of Mica Bay, containing more than a hundred male inhabitants. In passing through Lake Superior we were pleased with the flourishing appearance of this village, containing many nicely white-washed houses, grouped in terraces on the steep bank of the lake. The mines were worked by a company, under a grant from the Canadian legislature, who, at the same period, made many other similar grants of mining localities on the lake, without previously purchasing the Indian rights. As the game is nearly extinct on the borders of the lake, the natives subsist chiefly by the fisheries; and the vicinity of the mining establishments was likely to be beneficial to them rather than injurious, by providing a market for their fish. But when they beheld party after party of white men crowding to their lands, eager to take possession of their lots by erecting buildings, and inquisitively examining every cliff, they acquired exaggerated ideas of the value of their rocks. For two summers they descended in large bodies to Saut Ste. Marie, expecting payment, and, being disappointed, thought they were trifled with. They determined, therefore, in council, to bring matters to a crisis by expelling the aggressors, and, in the autumn of 1849, made a descent upon Mica Bay, and drove away the miners and their families. To repel this attack a regiment was ordered up from Canada, at an expense which would have paid the Indians again and again: but a small part of the force only reached Mica Bay, to find the Chippeways gone; the rest were driven back to Saut Ste. Marie by stormy weather, not without very severe suffering, leading, I have been informed, to loss of life.

PINE ISLAND LAKE.—SILURIAN STRATA.—STURGEON RIVER.—PROGRESS OF SPRING.—BEAVER LAKE.—ISLE À LA CROSSE BRIGADE.—RIDGE RIVER.—NATIVE SCHOOLMASTER AND HIS FAMILY.—TWO KINDS OF STURGEON.—NATIVE MEDICINES.—BALD EAGLES.—PELICANS.—BLACK-BELLIED AND CAYENNE TERNS.—CRANES.—FROG PORTAGE.—MISSINIPI OR CHURCHILL RIVER.—ITS LAKE-LIKE CHARACTER.—POISONOUS PLANTS AND NATIVE MEDICINES.—ATHABASCA BRIGADE.—SAND-FLY LAKE.—THE COUNTRY CHANGES ITS ASPECT.—BULL-DOG FLY.—ISLE À LA CROSSE LAKE.—ITS ALTITUDE ABOVE THE SEA.—LENGTH OF THE MISSINIPI.—ISLE À LA CROSSE FORT.—ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION.—DEEP RIVER.—CANADA LYNX.—BUFFALO LAKE.—METHY RIVER AND LAKE.—MURRAIN AMONG THE HORSES.—BURBOT OR LA LOCHE.—A MINK.—METHY PORTAGE.—JOIN MR. BELL AND HIS PARTY.

We left Cumberland House at 4 a.m., on the 14th of June, but had not passed above three miles through Pine Island Lake, before we were compelled to seek shelter on a small island by a violent thunder storm, bringing with it torrents of rain. The rain moderating after a few hours, we resumed our voyage; but the high wind continuing and raising the waves, our progress was slow, and the day's voyage did not exceed twenty-two miles. In the part of the lake where we encamped the limestone (silurian) rises, in successive outcrops, to the height of thirty feet above the water, the strike of the beds being about south-west by west, and north-east by east, or at right angles to the general line of direction of the gneiss and granite formation, which lies to the eastward. Many boulders of granite and trap rocks are scattered over the surface of the ground, far beyond the reach of any modern means of transport.

Thunder and heavy rain detained us in our encampment the whole of the following day; but some improvement in the weather taking place at midnight, we embarked, and at one in the morning of the 16th entered Sturgeon River, named by the voyagers, on account of its many bad rapids, "La Rivière Maligne." We made two portages, and an hour after noon reached Beaver Lake. The entire bed of the river consists of limestone, sometimes lying in nearly horizontal layers more or less fissured; in other places broken up into large loose slabs, tilted up and riding on each other. Boulders of granite occur in various parts of the river, some of them of considerable magnitude, and rising high out of the water. In the lower part of the river the banks are sandy, a considerable deposit of dry light soil overlies the limestone, and vegetation is early and vigorous.

When we left Lake Superior, in the middle of May, the deciduous trees gave little promise of life; and, in ascending the Kamenistikwoya, we were glad to let the eye dwell upon the groves of aspens which skirt the streams in that undulating and rocky district, and which, when well massed, gave a pleasing variety to the wintry aspect of the landscape,—the silvery hue of their leafless branches and young stems contrasting well with the sombre green of the spruce fir, which forms the bulk of the forest. On the 27th of May, while ascending Church Reach of Rainy River, we had been cheered by the lovely yellowish hue of the aspens just unfolding their young leaves; but the ice, lingering on Lake Winipeg, when we crossed it, had kept down the temperature, spring had not yet assumed its sway, and the trees were leafless. Now, the season seemed to be striding onwards rapidly, and the tender foliage was trembling on all sides in the bright sunshine. It was in a patch of burnt woods in this vicinity that, in the year 1820, I discovered the beautiful Eutoca Franklinii, now so common an ornament of our gardens.

Constantly, since the 1st of June, the song of the Fringilla leucophrys has been heard day and night, and so loudly, in the stillness of the latter season, as to deprive us at first of rest. It whistles the first bar of "Oh dear, what can the matter be!" in a clear tone, as if played on a piccolo fife; and, though the distinctness of the notes rendered them at first very pleasing, yet, as they haunted us up to the Arctic circle, and were loudest at midnight, we came to wish occasionally that the cheerful little songster would time his serenade better. It is a curious illustration of the indifference of the native population to almost every animal that does not yield food or fur, or otherwise contribute to their comfort or discomfort, that none of the Iroquois or Chippeways of our company knew the bird by sight, and they all declared boldly that no one ever saw it. We were, however, enabled, after a little trouble, to identify the songster, his song, and breeding-place. The nest is framed of grass, and placed on the ground under shelter of some small inequality; the eggs, five in number, are greyish- or purplish-white, thickly spotted with brown; and the male hides himself in a neighbouring bush while he serenades his mate.