Various - Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

Late in the afternoon of the next day, after a monotonous pull through the interminable windings of Eagle Nest Savanna, we swept around a curve of high tillable land upon the uppermost farm cultivated by whites, eighteen miles above Pekagema Falls, and one hundred and seventy miles by river beyond the Northern Pacific Railroad. Thomas Smith and his partner, farming, herding and lumbering at the mouth of Vermilion River, were the first white men we had seen since July 6, seventeen days, and with them we enjoyed a chat in straight English. Nine miles below we camped at River Camp, the second farm downward, where we were kindly supplied with vegetables and with fresh milk, which seemed to us then like the nectar of the gods. Thursday, 24th, we reached Pekagema Falls, a wild pitch of some twenty feet, with rapids above and below, down which the strong volume of the river plunges with terrible force in picturesque beauty. A carry around the falls and three miles of paddling brought us to Grand Rapids, and we rushed like the wind into the whirl and boil of its upper ledge, down the steep and crooked incline for two hundred yards, out of which we shot up to the bank under a little group of houses where Warren Potter and Knox & Wakefield conduct the uppermost post-office and stores upon the river. We speedily closed our partly-completed letters and posted them for a pack-mail upon an Indian's back sixty-five miles to Aitkin, while we should follow the tortuous river thither for one hundred and fifty miles. We had hoped for a rest and lift hence to Aitkin upon the good steamboat City of Aitkin, which makes a few lonely trips each spring and fall, but the low water had prevented her return from her last voyage, made ten days before our arrival. Our stores replenished, after two hours of rest we started again in a driving rain, and under the hearty bon voyage of a dozen frontiersmen and Indians shot the two lively lower ledges of Grand Rapids, and came out on smooth water, whose sluggish flow, broken by a very few rifts, bore us thence one hundred and fifty miles to the next white settlement at Aitkin. The entire distance lies through low bottom-lands heavily timbered, and our course was drearily monotonous. We left Grand Rapids at mid-afternoon of Thursday, July 24, and camped on Friday night four miles below Swan River. Late on Saturday we passed Sandy Lake River—where formerly were a large Indian population and an important trading-post, founded and for many years conducted by Mr. Aitkin, who was prominently identified with the early history of that region, and is now commemorated in the town and county bearing his name, but where now remain only one or two deserted cabins and a few Indian graves, over which white flags were flapping in the sultry breeze—and camped two miles below. Monday's afternoon brought us to Aitkin, so that we had covered one hundred and fifty miles of sluggish channel, at low summer tide, in three working days. We had been four weeks beyond possibility of home-tidings, and we swooped down upon the disciple of Morse in that far-away village with work that kept him clicking for an hour. We were handsomely taken in by Warren Potter, a pioneer and an active and intelligent factor in the business of that region, in whose tasteful home we for the first time in a month sat down and ate in Christian fashion under a civilized roof. Having lost a week in the farther wilderness, we decided to take the rail to Minneapolis, that we might enjoy the beautiful river thence to Lake Pepin, yet reach our homes within the appointed time. Half a day was enjoyed at Brainerd, the junction of the Northern Pacific main line with the St. Paul branch, and the most important town between Lake Superior and the Missouri. It is beautifully built and picturesquely scattered among the pines upon the Mississippi's eastern bank, not far above Crow Wing River. Thence we were carried over the splendid railway, passing the now abandoned Fort Ripley, winding along or near to the river and across the wheat-fields, through the busy and beautiful city of mills, below St. Anthony's roar and down the dancing rapids to a pleasant island-camp between the green-and-gray bluffs that bind Minneapolis to Minnehaha—the first really fine scenery this side of Itasca's solitude. A delightful paddle under a bright morning sun and over swift, clear water carried us to the little brook whose laughter, three-quarters of a mile up a deep ravine, has been sent by Longfellow rippling outward to all the world. We rounded the great white-faced sand-rock that marks the outlet, paddled as far as we might up the quiet stream, beached the canoes under the shade of the willows, walked a little way up the brook, past a deserted mill, under cool shadows of rock and wood, and enjoyed for half an hour the simple, seductive charms of the "Laughing Water." Then we tramped back to our boats, floated down under the old walls of Fort Snelling and between the chalk-white cliffs which line the broadening river, until we came in sight of St. Paul's roofs and spires, and soon were enjoying the thoughtful care and generous hospitality of the Minnesota Boat Club. Another day's close brought us to Red Wing, backgrounded by the green bluffs and reddened cliffs of its bold hills. One more pull down the now broad and islanded stream carried us to Lake Pepin, one of the loveliest mirrors that reflects the sun, and to Frontenac's white beach. The keels of the Fritz, the Betsy and the Hattie crunched the sands at the end of their long journey, the boats were shunted back upon the railway, and their weary owners were soon dozing in restful forgetfulness upon the couches of the unsurpassed Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul line.

Beyond reasonable doubt, our party is the only one that ever pushed its way by boat up the entire course of the farther-most Mississippi. Beyond any question, our canoes were the first wooden boats that ever traversed those waters. Schoolcraft, in 1832, came all the way down the upper river without portages, but he had very high water and many helpers, in spite of which one of his birch canoes was wrecked. The correspondent of a New York newspaper claimed the complete trip in his canoe some five years ago, but his own guide and others told us that his Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and that his portages above were frequent. So we may well feel an honest pride in our Rushton-built Rob Roys and our hard knocks, and may remember with pardonable gratification that upon our own feet and keels we have penetrated the solitudes lying around the source of the world's most remarkable river, where no men live and where, probably, not more than two-score white men have ever been.—A.H. SIEGFRIED.

By the time Reuben May entered the little town of Looe he had come to a decision about his movements and how he should carry out his plan of getting back to London. Not by going with Captain Triggs, for the monotonous inaction of a sailing voyage would now be insupportable to him, but by walking as far as he could, and now and then, whenever it was possible, endeavoring to get a cheap lift on the road. His first step must therefore be to inform Triggs of his decision, and to do this he must get back to Plymouth, a distance from Looe of some fifteen or sixteen miles.

In going through Looe that morning he had stopped for a few minutes at a small inn which stood not far from the beach; and having now crossed the river which divides West from East Looe, he began looking about for this house, intending to get some refreshments, to rest for an hour or so, and then proceed on his journey.

Already the town-clock was striking six, and Reuben calculated that if he started between nine and ten he should have time to take another good rest on the road—which he had already once that day traversed—and reach Plymouth Barbican, where the Mary Jane lay, by daybreak.