From the moment of our arrival at Detroit, we devoted ourselves, with intensity, to the preparation necessary for entering the wilderness. We were to travel, from this point, by a new mode of conveyance, namely, the Indian bark canoe, called a chimaun, a vehicle not less novel than curious. Constructed of large and thick sheets of the rind of the betula papyracea, or northern birch, which are cut in garment-like folds, and sewed together with the thin fibrous roots of the spruce, on a thin framework of cedar ribs, and having gunwales, with a sheathing of the same material, interposed between the bark and ribs. The seams are carefully gummed with the pitch of the pine. The largest of these canoes are thirty-six feet in length, and seven feet wide in the centre, tapering to a point each way. They carry a mast and sail, and are steered and propelled with light cedar paddles. They are at once light, so as to be readily carried over the portages, and so strong as to bear very considerable burdens. Those intended for us, were ordered from the Chippewas of Lake Huron, near Saganaw Bay. It was necessary to have mosquito-bars, portfolios, knapsacks, and various contrivances, and to make baggage of every sort assume the least possible bulk and space. The public armorer had orders to furnish me suitable hammers and other minerological apparatus for preparing and packing specimens. The expedition was quite an event in a remote town, and everybody seemed to take an interest in the preparation. A fortnight passed away in these preparations, and in awaiting the arrival of the canoes, respecting which there was some delay. It was the 24th of May before we were ready to embark. Besides the gentlemen mentioned as constituting the travelling party, ten Canadian _voyageurs_ were taken to manage the canoes, ten United States soldiers to serve as an escort, and ten Ottowa, Chippewa, and Shawnee Indians to act as hunters, under the directions of James Riley, an Anglo-American, and Joseph Parks, a Shawnee captive (at present, head chief of the Shawnee nation), as interpreters. This canoe contained a chief called Kewaygooshkum, a sedate and respectable man, who, a year afterwards, played an important part at the treaty of Chicago.