FOREWORD

Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his essays on the art of writing, says in substance that one of the methods of telling a story is to choose a background and then build in harmony with the landscape selected.

In The Gold Rock of the Chippewa the writer has followed this method. The story opens in 1775, a dozen years after the Great Lakes region had been ceded by France to England. But it does not attempt to tell of the great war in which Wolfe and Montcalm gave their lives for their countries. It might be called “The Robinson Crusoe of Lake Superior,” as the events of the whole story take place among the rocky wooded hills, on the cold streams, the clear lakes, the wild islands, and on the deep blue waters of “Gitche Gumee,” the largest and most beautiful of the great inland seas of North America.

D. Lange.

St. Paul, Minnesota, August, 1925. [7]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[11]

THE COUNCIL

There was great excitement in the Chippewa camp on a small lake near the Sault Sainte Marie early in June, 1775. A council was going to be held to decide the fate of two Americans who had ventured into that part of the country as unwelcome visitors.

The prevailing opinion in the camp was that they should not be allowed to stay or to continue their journey, but should go back to their own country. However, there were a few warriors who demanded a much more radical proceeding against the strangers; and the most clamorous amongst these was Hamogeesik, who strutted about with his face painted black and bragged that [12]he was going to take the scalp of the two Englishmen, as he called them, because twelve years before at the siege of Detroit the English had killed his brother.

In the meantime, the two Americans, Bruce Henley, a young man who might be twenty-five years old, and his brother, Ray Henley, a lad of thirteen, kept rather close to the tepee of Ganawa, an old warrior who ridiculed the claims of Hamogeesik, whom he called a coward and “a much bad Indian.”

About an hour after sunset the beat of the tom-tom called the warriors to council. There were about twenty-five of them presided over by a chief who had seen many winters and had twice gone on the warpath against the Sioux, even then the enemies of the Chippewas.

The council-house was a very simple structure. It consisted of poles set in the ground, over which had been built a roof of boughs; but no white man’s court or jury ever assembled with greater dignity and [13]listened with more gravity to the arguments of eloquent lawyers or the charges of dignified judges than the unlettered warriors in Chief Winnego’s camp near the Sault Sainte Marie listened to the speakers.

Hamogeesik was the first to speak. He pleaded that the Englishmen should be turned over to him. That he should be allowed to keep them as slaves or to take their scalps, because the English had killed his brother, a brave Chippewa warrior, in the fights at Detroit, when the great war chief Pontiac led all the Indians against the English.

When Hamogeesik had finished and sat down on his deerskin robe, Ganawa arose. He was a man over six feet tall. His hair was beginning to turn gray, but his shoulders did not stoop, and from his eyes flashed the anger and fire of a young warrior.

“My brother,” he began in a low, deep voice, “has told you that his brother was killed by the English at Detroit. In that Hamogeesik has told you the truth. But [14]I ask you now why Hamogeesik’s brother went to Detroit. That place, as you all know, is many days’ journey from our country, and we had no grievance against the English. You know that many of our wise men and our own chief Winnego advised our young men not to join in the great war of the Ottawas and their chief Pontiac, but to stay at home and hunt deer and keep the bears and the coons out of the cornfields, which our women were beginning to plant.

“If Hamogeesik’s brother desired so much to fight our enemies, why did he not make up a war party against the Sioux?

“You know, brothers, that the young Englishmen are our guests, and live in my tepee, and you know what the little Englishman did only a day after he and his big brother came to our camp. You know that the little son of my daughter was fishing from a canoe and that the canoe drifted away with him. There was no other canoe on the beach and only our women and some [15]old men were in camp. When my daughter cried aloud and believed that her small son must drown, the little Englishman took off his shoes and plunged into the cold water. He showed that he was a better swimmer than most of us are. He reached the canoe and pushed it ashore, because there was no paddle with which to steer. You know that, when he reached the shore, his eyes closed and his legs would not move any more, so the women had to carry him to my tent. You know that the water which runs out of the great sea Gitche Gumee is so cold that it never gives up its dead.

“Here under this deerskin is a present for all of you, including Hamogeesik, and I ask you that the Englishmen be given to me that I may adopt them as my sons. They have shown themselves good and brave men and true friends of our people.

“We do not wish it told at the camp-fires of the Chippewas and the Ottawas that the warriors of Winnego have turned traitors to their friends and have forgotten the sacred [16]laws of hospitality that our fathers have taught us. I have finished.”

Contrary to Indian habit and custom the case was not held open for another council, but it was decided that the two Americans should belong to Ganawa, a decision which Hamogeesik heard with scowling silence.

Bruce Henley and Ray had surmised what the general drift of the two talks had been, but did not know what had been said until Ganawa translated the speeches to them after the council had broken up. [17]

GANAWA SPEAKS

Bruce Henley knew enough of Indian etiquette to realize that his friend and Indian father would not ask him why he and the boy had come to the Indian country, and what their plans were for the future. He also realized that he must tell Ganawa the whole story.

A few days later, when he and Ray were alone in the tepee with Ganawa, Bruce unburdened his mind to the Chippewa hunter, who was now looked upon by the Indians as the father and protector of the two Americans who had for some mysterious reasons come to the region of the Upper Great Lake.

“My father,” he began, “I must now tell you why your white sons have come to the Chippewa country. We know that the [18]Chippewas and the Ottawas still love the French better than the English. We know that many Americans, or Englishmen, as the Indians call them, lost their lives at Mackinac twelve years ago, but we had a very good reason for coming to your country, although we knew that we might meet many dangers.”

“The English are brave men,” replied Ganawa. “I know that at that time an Englishman, whom the whites called Alexander Henry, came to Mackinac and to the Sault, and that our brother Wawatam adopted him as his son and saved his life. He is a very brave man; he has now left my people and has gone to trade with the Indians who live far to the west of us in the buffalo country. But I will now listen to my son, so I may learn why he and his little brother have come to our country. You have not come to trade because you have not brought many goods like the brave Englishman.”

“I shall truthfully tell my father why we have come,” Bruce then resumed. “It [19]is now about four years ago that my boyhood friend, Jack Dutton, went to the country of the Big Lake to trade and to trap beaver and marten. I wanted to go with him, but I had a mother and a sister for whom I had to make a home. My sister is now married to a good man, and my mother lives with her, and I was free to leave the colony of Vermont, where my white friends are living.”

“My son, I hear your words,” Ganawa replied, when Bruce was silent. “If you will tell me where your white brother is trading and hunting, it may be that I can lead you to him, unless he is living in the country of our enemies, the Sioux.”

“My father,” Bruce took up the story, “I cannot tell you where my friend is living. After he had been gone a year, he sent me a letter through some traders, saying that next summer he would look for me at Mackinac or at the Big Rapids that run out of the Big Lake. He said in his letter that I should not start till he wrote again, [20]but he has never written again. Now, my father, I have told you all I know of my friend.

“I fear,” Bruce continued when Ganawa did not speak, “that some evil thing has come to my friend. Perhaps he is sick and cannot travel. Perhaps he is held as a captive among the Indians, or he may have lost his life in the woods or in a storm on the Big Lake. Perhaps some bad white man or Indian has robbed and killed him.”

“My son,” Ganawa took up the talk, “you have not told me much. Was your brother tall, did he have brown hair, and did he walk with a long step?”

“Yes, my father,” Bruce warmly assented, “such was my friend. A tall man, thick brown hair, and he walks with a long stride.”

“I have seen your brother,” Ganawa declared. “But you, my sons, should have looked for him on the island of Mackinac, where many Indians and traders assemble every spring. But Mackinac is in the Lake [21]of the Hurons, more than a hundred miles by water from our camp.”

“My father,” replied Bruce eagerly, “we did visit Mackinac before we came to your camp, and he was not there. We talked to Indians and white traders, but none of them knew him or had seen him either this spring or last spring. A trader told us to travel to your camp on the lake through which runs the cold river between the Big Lake and the Lake of the Hurons. We travelled to your camp, you have become our father, and now we pray you that you tell us when and where you saw our brother.”

“I saw your brother at the Great Sault at the time of the strawberry moon. It was twelve or more moons ago. He had with him a Canadian, and Hamogeesik and his friends tried to rob him of his goods. But your brother showed a bold heart. He talked to the Indians while he was leaning on his gun and in his belt he showed two pistols and a hunting-knife. He told them if harm came to him and his men and if his [22]goods were taken from him, the English soldiers at Mackinac would hear of it and would punish the guilty. He did not say with words that he would fight for his goods, but he told them with his eyes that he and his man would fight. Hamogeesik is a coward and he and his friends slunk away like dogs.

“During the night the moon stood south of the Big Lake and when a gentle wind sprang up from the east, your brother put all his goods in his boat and he and his man sailed away.

“When the sun rose and the Indians learned that your brother had sailed away, they laughed at Hamogeesik and said: ‘Hamogeesik, you are a fool, but the white trader is wise and brave,’ and they gave him a new Indian name, which means the Brave White Man. Now I have told you all I know of your brother, but to what part or to which bay or island of the Big Lake your brother and his man sailed away I cannot tell you.” [23]

GITCHE GUMEE

Bruce Henley realized that the information Ganawa had just given him was not encouraging; but if he had fully comprehended the size of this inland sea, its sheer endless shore-line, which it would take years to explore and search in detail, he would have been utterly discouraged at the well-meant information of Ganawa.

On the usual small map of a school-book, Lake Superior looks quite commonplace and harmless, but no man can stand on its shore without feeling the overwhelming power and mystery of this sea in the heart of a continent. It is different from every other lake on earth.

The distance a boat must sail from its west end at Duluth to the canals which now pass the Sault Sainte Marie is greater than the distance from St. Paul and Minneapolis [24]to Chicago or from Buffalo to New York. Its shore-line would stretch more than half-way across the continent between New York and San Francisco.

On this shore-line there are great bays, more than fifty miles in length, such as Nipigon Bay and Black Bay, where a canoe or small boat might wind about for a whole summer in a maze of channels and among a world of large and small islands, and bold, rocky headlands.

On the other hand, there are great stretches of more than a hundred miles where the rocks, a hundred feet high, drop sheer into the lake, and where it is difficult for even a canoe or a rowboat to find shelter in a storm.

In area, Lake Superior is about equal to the combined areas of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Its greatest depth runs close to a thousand feet, and depths of three hundred to seven hundred feet a few miles from shore are very common. The water is so clear that in quiet [25]bays one can see a fish at a depth of twenty feet, and the waves and the white spray have the color and appearance of waves and spray of the ocean.

The water is always ice-cold, except in midsummer within a few feet of the surface and in quiet, sheltered bays. But even in midsummer, the surface temperature does not pass fifty degrees.

The low temperature of the water is the reason that bodies of persons drowned in Lake Superior very rarely rise to the surface or drift ashore. The tradition that Lake Superior never gives up its dead is as old as the navigation of the lake by white men, and it existed among the Indians before the arrival of white men.

The writer has found no records of Indians ever travelling over the middle of the lake. Several of the red tribes were bold and skillful canoeists, but they were not sailors. They did, however, occasionally visit the large islands such as Michipicoten and Isle Royale, and in fair weather they [26]paddled boldly along the shore from the Sault to Grand Portage and Duluth, and in one recorded case the Chippewa woman, Netnoqua, and her adopted white son, John Tanner, beat a trader’s sailboat on the voyage from the Sault to Grand Portage at the mouth of the Pigeon River. On this trip Netnoqua’s canoe must have travelled nearly five hundred miles.

Unfortunately a school-book map cannot tell the story of the Big Lake, but a look at the fine large map of Lake Superior published by the United States Lake Survey suggests at a glance the spell of the Big Lake, of the clear cold water, of calm sunny summer days, of thick gray fogs, and of terrible autumn and winter storms.

Had Bruce and Ray Henley known all these things, their hearts might have failed them and they might never have ventured on the waves of Lake Superior and into the wild forests which, at that time, surrounded the whole of the vast inland sea.

A few days after Bruce and Ganawa had [27]had their talk, the Chippewa suggested that they might travel up the Big Lake a little way.

“My sons,” he told his white friends, “we shall learn nothing more of your brother and we shall never find him, if we stay in this camp and fish in the lake and hunt deer in the forest. I have friends who generally make their summer camp on Batchawana Bay. It may be that they can tell us more of your white brother. They may have seen French traders from the Grand Portage or even from a very distant place, which the French call Fond du Lac, which lies many leagues toward the setting sun and means ‘the End of the Lake.’

“You must have noticed, my sons,” he continued after a pause, “that Hamogeesik and his friends have left our camp. I do not know where they have gone. You should not be afraid of them, although I believe that they are planning some evil, because their tongues are forked and their hearts are black.” [28]

A few days later, Ganawa and his two white sons paddled a large birch-bark canoe up-stream. When the water became too swift, Ganawa steered the light craft to a safe landing-place and stepped out into the shallow water.

“My sons,” he said, “take our axes, our blankets, and other things and follow me.” Then he lifted the canoe on his shoulders and walked away with it on a plain portage trail. After he had walked about a mile he put the canoe in the water again.

“My little son,” he said to Ray Henley, “you must now learn to travel in an Indian canoe. Here is a small paddle which I have made for you of cedar wood. It is very light and will not tire your arms.”

Then Bruce knelt on a piece of canvas in the bow of the boat. Ray took his place in the middle, while Ganawa knelt in the stern, which is always the place of the steersman.

“My sons,” spoke Ganawa, “I shall now steer you over the water of the Big [29]Lake to the beautiful and quiet Bay of Batchawana. You, my little son, must not be frightened if a big wave lifts up our canoe, and you must not put your hands on the sides of the canoe. When your arms are tired you may rest, but you must sit very still, for you know that the water of Gitche Gumee is very cold.”

The day was already well advanced when the three travellers started north on the open lake. The sky was clear and there was no wind, but a haze hung on the horizon and made the western shore invisible as Ganawa skirted along the east shore. A broad swell from the north added to the impression that the canoe was headed for the open sea.

“Bruce, I am afraid,” Ray whispered. “This lake is so much bigger than Lake George and Lake Champlain in Vermont. It looks like the ocean. I—I am afraid we shall all drown.”

“My son, you need have no fear,” Ganawa assured the young lad. “The lake is not very big here. If there were no haze [30]in the air you could see the blue forest to the west. I can tell from the sky that no wind is coming, and we are running so close to shore that we could land before the waves grow too big, if a wind did spring up.”

They might have been going about three hours, when Ray became more cheerful. “I can see land now,” he remarked, “ahead of us to the left.”

“You see an island, my son,” Ganawa told him. “The French call it Isle Parisienne.”

When the sun stood low beyond this island, Ganawa headed the canoe toward a point which is now called Goulais Point. “We sleep here to-night,” he said. “It is not good to travel on the Big Lake after dark.”

“My father,” asked Ray, “I thought you said it was only a little way to that bay where we are going?”

“It is only a little way,” Ganawa replied calmly. “After we have slept, we shall soon go to Batchawana Bay.”

Ray asked no more questions, but he [31]wondered what distance Ganawa would call a long journey, if he referred to a two-days’ trip as “only a little way.”

When Ganawa had gone off to gather boughs for the night’s camp, Ray could not resist expressing his anxiety to his older brother. “Bruce,” he said, “this lake and the country are so big we shall never find anybody. I am not afraid any more to go with you and Ganawa on the lake if you don’t go in a storm. But you will see we shall never find Jack Dutton. How can you find anybody here? There are no towns and no farms, just water and woods, and rocks and big hills and islands and a few Indians. Do you think there are wolves and bears in these woods? If there are, I am going to ask Ganawa to let me sleep in the canoe.”

Just then Ganawa returned with an armful of boughs, but Ray could not quite muster enough courage to ask him about the danger from wolves and bears.

After a supper of venison, roasted on a [32]fire of driftwood, Ray soon slipped under the blankets on the bed of balsam boughs, and long before Ganawa and Bruce stopped talking he was fast asleep after the many new impressions and the fears and anxieties of the day.