In 1923, Stanley Newton published, “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part nine of a continuing series, that tells the history of Sault Ste. Marie and area in its early years. I have left punctuation and grammar intact. – Laurie Davis
“Mr. Johnston has plenty of cattle, hogs, sheep, and domestic fowl, and has also a very good windmill close to his dwelling-house. Fish is found in great abundance, particularly trout. They are of enormous size, sixty pounds is not uncommon, and Mr. Johnston assured me that he saw one caught in Lake Superior which weighed ninety pounds.
“He treated us to an excellent dinner, fine wine, and a few tumblers of Irish mountain dew which had never seen the face of an exciseman. We left Mr. Johnston’s at dusk, but he crossed over with us to the north side, and we spent together another night of social and intellectual enjoyment.”
In the days of Cox and Schoolcraft, the Saulteurs picnicked at Point aux Pins. The Shallows and Gros Cap as they do now, but the glorious sport of shooting the rapids is gone forever, barred by the compensating dam, which stretches from the Amerian to the Canadian ship canals. Modern Saulteurs make the picnic pilgrimage in cars or launches; the old Saulteurs had no other conveyance than canoes.
“I went with a picnic to Gross Cap, a romantic promontory at the foot of Lake Superior,” says Schoolcraft. “This elevation stands on the north shore of the straits and consequently in Canada. It overlooks a noble expanse of waters and islands, constituting one of the most magnificent series of views of American scenery. Immediately opposite stands the scarcely less elevated and not less celebrated promontory of Point Iroquois, the Na-do-wa-we-gon-ing, or Place of Iroquois Bones, of the Chippewas. These two promontories stand like pillars of Hercules, which guard the entrance into the Mediterranean, and their office is to mark the foot of the mighty Superior, a lake which may not aptly, be deemed another Mediterranean Sea. The morning chosen to visit this scene was fine; the means of conveyance chosen was the novel and fairy-like barque of the Chippewas, which they denominate Che-maun, but which we, from a corruption of a Charib term as old as the days of Columbus, call a Canoe.
“Our party consisted of several ladies and gentlemen. We carried the elements of a picnic (a word derived from a root meaning, to eat). We moved rapidly. The views on all sides were novel and delightful. The water in which the men struck their paddles was pure as crystal. The air was perfectly exhilarating from its purity. The distance about three leagues.
Landed at Point Aux Pins
“We landed at Point Aux Pins, to range along the clean sandy shore, and sandy plains now abounding in fine whortle berries.
“Directly on putting out from this, the broad view of the entrance into the lake burst upon us. It is magnificent. A line of blue water stretched like a thread upon the horizon, between cape and cape, say five miles. Beyond it is what the Chippewas call Bub-eesh-ko-be, meaning the far-off, indistinct prospect of a water scene, till the reality, in the feeble power of human vision, loses itself in the clouds and sky.
Point Iroquois and Gross Cap
“The two prominences of Point Iroquois and Gross Cap are very different in character. The former is a bold eminence covered with trees, and having the appearance of youth and verdure. The latter is but the end, so to say, of a towering ridge of dark primary rocks with a few stunted cedars. The first exhibits on inspection, a formation of sandstone and reproduced rocks, piled stratum, superstratum, and covered with boulder drifts and alluvion. The second is a massive mountain ridge of the northern sienite, abounding in black crystaline hornblende, and flanked at lower latitudes in front, in some places, by a sort of trachyte. We clambered up and over the bold undulations of the latter till we were fatigued.
“We stood on the highest pinnacle and gazed on the ‘blue profound’ of Superior, the great water or Gitchegomee of the Indians. We looked down far below at the clean ridges of pebbles and the transparent water. After gazing and looking, and reveling in the wild magnificence of views, we picked our way, crag by crag, to the shore, and sat down on the shining banks of black, white, and mottled pebbles, and did ample justice to the contents of our baskets of good things.
“This always restores one’s spirits. We forget the toil in the present enjoyment. And having done this, and giving our last looks at what has been poetically called the Father of Lakes, we put out, with paddles and song, and every heart beating in unison with the scene, for our starting point, at Ba-wa-teeg, alias Sault Ste. Marie.
Shooting the Rapids
“But the half of my story would not be told if I did not add that, as we gained the brink of the rapids, and began to feel the suction of the wide current that leaps, jump after jump, over that foaming bed, our inclinations and our courage rose together to go down the formidable pass, and having full faith in the long-tried pilotage of our guide, Tom Shaw, down we went, rushing at times like a thunderbolt, then turned by a dab of the pole of our guide, on a rock, shooting off in eschelon, and then careening down another schute or water bolt, till we thus dodged every rock, and came out below with a full roaring chorus of our Canadians, who, as they cleared the last danger, hoisted our starry flag at the same moment that they struck up one of their wild and joyous songs.”
This is about the first detailed and personal description, we have of the surpassing sport of rapids-shooting here by the whites. It was a pastime enjoyed by the French from the time they came, and before that by the Indians for countless generations. The trip afforded entertainment and thrills for thousands of tourists before the compensating dam was erected.
With the coming of Cass and Schoolcraft and the better of treatment accorded the Indians by the American Fur Company, most of the old hostility of the Indians in this section to our Government faded away. Through the Indian agents, the Government frequently made gifts to the Saulteur Chippewas, both in mass and individually as need arose, and the latter gradually discontinued their visits to and their affiliation with the British posts.
Indians are Given Gifts
It was Schoolcraft’s custom to assemble the Saulteur Chippewas at intervals on the green in front of his office near the bank of the river and distribute various articles of merchandise among them. Whiskey is not mentioned, indeed Schoolcraft had a horror of its effects on the Indians and continually bewailed its influence on particular Indian acquaintances of his. The gifts were received with appreciation and satisfaction and helped to cement his influence and his friendship with the Saulteurs. Prominent among the recipients were Shingabawassin, the Stone Image; Shewabeketone, the Man of Jingling Metals; Kaugaosh, the Bird in Flight; and Wayishkee, the First Born Son. With them came the warriors and the young men, the matrons and the maids, and the children of all ages, and all were in their best attire.
Even in the receipt of the Governmental gifts the Indians were ceremonious. The functions began with the lighting of the pipes, which were passed to the chiefs and the warriors in due order. A pile of tobacco was placed before them for general use, which the chiefs with great care divided and distributed, not forgetting the lowest claimant.
Schoolcraft was careful to state the principles by which the agency was guided in its intercourse with them, the benevolence and justice of the views entertained by their great father, the President, and his wish to keep improper traders out of their country, to exclude ardent spirits, and to secure their peace and happiness in every practicable way. Each sentence, as it was rendered into Indian, was received with the response of Ho! – an exclamation of approbation, unfettered feebly or loudly in proportion as the matter was warmly or coldly approved. The chiefs responded in formal words of thanks, all were pleased, the presents were divided, and each assembly broke up in harmony and goodwill.
This distribution was continued for many years in the field below the rapids. “It does seem,” writes Schoolcraft, “that according to the oriental maxim, a present is the readiest door to an Indian’s heart.”
Henry Schoolcraft died December 10, 1864, at Washington, D.C.
A part of the duties of Schoolcraft and his successors as Indian Agents was to search the boats and outfits of voyageurs and petty traders for contraband and to grant licenses, passports, and permits to those applying. This contraband consisted of a course of liquors of various kinds.
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