John Long's journal, 1768-1782Long, J. (John), Indian trader
History
John Long's journal, 1768-1782
Long, J. (John), Indian trader
Fur trade -- Canada; Indians of North America; Indians of North America -- Languages; Ojibwa language
For a description of Indian pipes and smoking habits, see U. S.
National Museum _Report_, 1897, pp. 351 ff. The material for the red
calumets is called “catlinite,” from George Catlin, who described it
in 1836. It is found in the pipestone quarries of Pipestone County, in
Southwestern Minnesota. See _Jesuit Relations_, lix, p. 310.—ED.
Footnote 53:
For a description of the rattle called “sysyquoy,” see _Wisconsin
Historical Collections_, xvi, p. 367; and Masson, _Bourgeois_, ii, p.
333.—ED.
Footnote 54:
The Nipigon River is the largest and most northerly tributary of Lake
Superior, and the outlet for Lake Nipigon. Its region, until the
building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, was almost as wild and
unknown as when visited by the French explorers in the seventeenth
century. Perrot mentions this river and lake in his _Mémoire_ (1658);
and Duluth (1684) wrote to De la Barre of the “fort which I have
constructed near the River à la Maune, at the bottom [the north end of
Lake Alemipigon,” as a barrier to the English trade from Hudson Bay.
In 1687, Duluth’s brother traded with fifteen hundred Indians in the
Lake Nipigon region. The furs from this district were especially rich
and valuable, and the trading post on the lake appears to have been
maintained throughout the French occupation. La Vérendrye was
commandant here in 1728, when he became fired by the reports of the
savage Ochagach, with zeal for Western exploration. See _Northern and
Western Boundaries of Ontario_ (Toronto, 1878), pp. 68–80.
In 1757, Bougainville describes this post as follows: “Les Népigons, a
post established to the north of Lake Superior; the commandant is its
farmer and pays for that privilege about 4,000 francs; it includes the
Lake à la Carpe.... The post produces generally every year from eighty
to one hundred bundles of fur.” After the British occupation the
productiveness of the region declined. Duncan Cameron says that when
he first went to this country (1785), the whole district produced but
fifty-six packs of fur, although it had no opposition from Hudson Bay,
and part of the Lake Winnipeg department was included in the Nipigon
district. See Cameron, “The Nipigon Country,” in Masson, _Bourgeois_,
ii, pp. 231–300. The North West Company considered this to be its
territory, but later the Hudson’s Bay Company built a post at Red
Rock, near the mouth of the river—now a station on the Canadian
Pacific Railway. The Hudson’s Bay Company still maintains a wintering
post, known as Poplar Lodge, on the east shore of Lake Nipigon. See
Canadian Bureau of Mines _Report_, 1901, p. 212. The Nipigon River is
now noted as a fisherman’s paradise. For a description of the route
from the mouth of the river to the lake, see Canadian Geological
Survey _Report_, 1867–69, p. 336.—ED.
Footnote 55:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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