The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864Various
Religion
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Our afternoon sail was up Detroit River and the St. Clair, threading our
way among its many verdant islands and rich shores graced with numerous
pretty villages. At 9 p.m. we reached Port Huron and its Canadian
opposite neighbor, Sarnia. At this point is the southern outlet of Lake
Huron, distant seventy-three miles from Detroit. Sarnia is also the
western depot of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, while Windsor,
facing Detroit, terminates the Canadian Great Western. From Sarnia,
passing old Fort Gratiot, over to Port Huron, the railway ferry boat,
propelled by the current only, transfers its passengers to the cars of
the Grand Trunk line, on Michigan soil, and by a short branch
intersects the Michigan Central Railroad, a few miles west of Detroit.
For over twelve hundred miles this iron road, fitly named the Grand
Trunk, transports our Western products. Entering Lake Huron, with its
innumerable islands and almost wilderness shores, our sail through it,
of two hundred and seventy-five miles in all, brought us early, on the
2d of August, off Saginaw and Thunder Bays, its western arms, with
Presque Isle, the Great Manitoulin Island, bearing north by east; and by
noon, we reached Point de Tour, at the outlet of St. Mary's River, three
hundred miles from Detroit, lying opposite to Drummond's Island.
Point de Tour has but a solitary dwelling, from whose roof rises the
light tower. Its inmates are said to have preferred this solitude to the
crowded refinement of a New England city. Shortly after, and still
coasting the western side, we stopped at Church's Landing, where an
enterprising New Englander has built his log houses in the forest, amid
the Indians, and drives an active commerce in _raspberry jam_. His trade
has prospered, and he had just completed a new and handsome dwelling.
Fourteen miles farther brought us to Saut Sainte Marie, or the rapids of
the eastern outlet of Lake Superior.
Lake Huron is at an average height of five hundred and seventy-five feet
above the sea level, and one hundred feet in depth below Lake Superior,
with a length in direct line of two hundred and seventy-five miles, from
Port Huron to Saut Sainte Marie. Georgian Bay, to the east of the Great
Manitoulin Island, is its broad eastern expansion; while, on the west,
the Straits of Mackinaw open into the vast expanse of Lake Michigan,
extending a length of four hundred and forty-six miles to Chicago. The
borders of Lake Huron are sparsely peopled. The primitive forest bends
over the lake's clear waters, and surrounds the log cabin or infant
settlement with the wigwam and canoe of the Indian half breeds, who are
still fishing and hunting round the graves of their ancestors-once the
fiercest of all the warrior races that scarce forty years ago as
sovereigns roamed its wilds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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