﻿MICA BAY. 73 



Chippeways and Sioux, nor to restrain their war 

 parties. 



Very recently the Chippeways of Lake Superior, 

 through some oversight in the Canadian govern- 

 ment in not making arrangements with them at 

 the proper time, organised a war party against the 

 mining village of Mica Bay, containing more than 

 a hundred male inhabitants. In passing through 

 Lake Superior we were pleased with the flou- 

 rishing appearance of this village, containing many 

 nicely white-washed houses, grouped in terraces 

 on the steep bank of the lake. The mines were 

 worked by a company, under a grant from the 

 Canadian legislature, who, at the same period, 

 made many other similar grants of mining loca- 

 lities on the lake, without previously purchasing 

 the Indian rights. As the game is nearly extinct 

 on the borders of the lake, the natives subsist 

 chiefly by the fisheries ; and the vicinity of the 

 mining establishments was likely to be beneficial to 

 them rather than injurious, by providing a market 

 for their fish. But when they beheld party after 

 party of white men crowding to their lands, eager 

 to take possession of their lots by erecting buildings, 

 and inquisitively examining every cliiF, they ac- 

 quired exaggerated ideas of the value of their 

 rocks. For two summers they descended in large 

 bodies to Saut Ste. Marie, expecting payment, and, 



