Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832 — John Shaqi
Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820: Resumed and Completed, by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1832
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Great Lakes (North America); Mississippi River -- Sources; Northwest, Old -- Description and travel
It was the 1st of June before we could leave the spot where we had been
confined. We embarked at six o'clock, the lake being sufficiently
pacific, though not yet settled. But after proceeding about a league, it
again became agitated, and drove us ashore, where we lay without
encamping. Kewaygushkum was requested to send some of his young men in
quest of game. The soldiers and engagees also formed fishing parties, at
a contiguous river; but about three o'clock in the afternoon all the
parties returned completely unsuccessful. There was neither fish nor
game to be had. At the same time the agitation of the lake ceased, the
wind springing up from an opposite quarter, which enabled us to hoist
sail. This put every one in a pleasant humor, and we proceeded along the
coast till evening, and encamped on a small sandy bay, which puts into
the land, immediately beyond the promontory of Point aux Barques--an
estimated distance of twenty-five miles from our starting-point in the
morning.
At the distance of a league before reaching this point, the first
stratum of rock, _in situ_, presents itself. It is a gray friable
sandstone, elevated from ten to twenty feet above the water, but
attaining a greater height in the approach to this noted cape. This
stratum of sandstone rock, which is of a perishable character, is
exposed to receive the shock of the waves of Lake Huron for several
hundred miles from the north and west. It exhibits the force and fury of
the lake action by the numerous cavities which have been worn into it,
at the water's edge, and by the sub-bays which have, in some localities,
been formed in the line of dark opposing cliffs. It was in one of these
sub-bays that we encamped, on a smooth sandy beach, which appears to
have been a favorite encamping ground of the natives. But although we
had met several canoes of Chippewas, on the route between Fort Gratiot
and this point, none were found at the place of our encampment. Such of
them as we approached, on the lake, were invariably in want of food, and
received it with evident marks of gratification.
On going inland, back from our encampment, we found a succession of arid
ridges of sand, which had been evidently produced by the prostrated
sandstone of the coast, which, after comminution by the waves, had been
carried to this position by the winds. These ancient dunes and ridges
were covered sparsely with pitch pines and aspen, and having their
surfaces covered with the uva ursi, pyrola, and smaller shrub-growth
common to arenaceous soils.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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