The Minute Man on the FrontierPuddefoot, William George
History
The Minute Man on the Frontier
Puddefoot, William George
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Missions -- West (U.S.)
Take the map, and see what a little thin strip the upper peninsula of
Michigan makes. Now start on the best train at St. Ignace in the
morning, and it is eight at night before you reach the copper regions
or the Gogebic Range. When I lived in St. Ignace, and the connections
were poor, it took two days to travel from that port to Calumet. If we
went by water we had to sail forty miles east before we doubled Point
Detour; and then we threaded our way among scenes of beauty equal to
the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence. Every mile of the way is
alive with historic interest. In St. Ignace lie the bones of Father
Marquette; across the Straits, Mackinaw City, where the terrible
massacre occurred, spoken of by Parkman; midway, is Mackinaw Island,
called by the Indians The Great Turtle.
Here to-day on the Island are the old block forts, and here the little
iron safe in which John Jacob Astor kept his money when in the
fur-trade. Full of natural beauty, to-day the past and present crowd
one another. Here are Indians, half-breeds, and Americans, and modern
hotels. There are no mosquitoes; for the Island is but three miles in
diameter, and the wind blows too strong for them. Here you may find
the lilac in full bloom on the Fourth of July, and in the fall
delicious blue plums that have not been hurt by the black knot. The
daylight is nearly eighteen hours long in midsummer. The people are
sowing oats when the southern farmers in the State are thinking of
cutting theirs. In April, near Grand Rapids, I picked the arbutus. In
early May, at Vanderbilt, I picked it again, and saw pure white snow
in patches in the woods. Later in May I saw it again north of the
Straits of Mackinaw, and in June I found it in the Keweenak Peninsula.
At Hancock I saw a foot of snow compressed under the cordwood, and
some between buildings not exposed to the sun. On account of the
lateness of the season, pease escape the bugs, which are elsewhere so
destructive; and thousands of bushels of seed are sent every year to
the upper Peninsula.
But to return to St. Ignace. It is so unlike any other American town,
that I did not wonder at an old lady of over ninety, who was born
there, speaking of her visit to Detroit as the time when she went to
the States. Here the old Catholic church dates back to the early days
of French settlement. The lots run from the water-front back. Your
Frenchman must have a water-front, no matter how narrow. So the town
was four miles long, and composed mostly of one street, which
followed the water-front; and although there were four thousand
people living there in 1884, and we had a mayor, the primeval forest
came right into the city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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