METALLIC IMrLEMENTS OF NEW YUKK LNDIANS 9 



Soon after Quebec was founded (Jliain]>lain niontioned a piece 

 of very handsome and pure copper given him by an Algonquin. 

 It was a foot long. The great discoverer said, '' He gave me to 

 understand that there were large quantities where he had taken 

 this, which was on the banks of a river, near a great lake. He 

 said that they gathered it in lumps, and having melted it, spread 

 it in sheets, smoothing it with stones." — Clmmplain, 2:23G 



Presumably this refers to Lake Superior, and the melting 

 merely to softening the metal by heat. The statement lacks 

 precision in these ways, but it would have been possible for an 

 eastern Algonquin while in alliance or friendship with the 

 Hurons to reach Lake Superior. 



A succeeding statement is more precise. Radisson wintered in 

 1658 on the shore of that great lake, and mentioned the native 

 copper several times. He seems to refer to ornamental forms 

 when he speaks of a "yellow waire that they make w^ith copper, 

 made like a starr or a half-moon.'- — Radisson, p. 188, 212. This 

 would bring the making of native copper ornaments far within 

 the historic period, but there is no notice of implements. In the 

 same year occurred the visit which brought Lake Superior copper 

 plainly to view. This was made by an Algonquin chief living on 

 the Saguenay, who had passed 10 years in the country of the 

 Xipisiriniens, and w-hose name was Awatanik. Thence he went 

 to Lake Superior in 1658, spending the following winter there. 

 TVo Frenchmen returned from this lake in 1660 with 300 Algon- 

 quins, but they said nothing about copper, though they had 

 wintered there also. 



The first definite Jesuit report of Lake Superior ore is in the 

 Relation of 1660. In that year a French missionary met the 

 Algonquin mentioned, just returned from that region, where he 

 had gone in 1658. He found there " copper so excellent that it 

 is found fully refined, in pieces as large as the fist." The infer- 

 ence is that the Indians east of Michigan had little knowledge 

 of this before. The Relation of 1667 contains the journey of 

 Father Claude Allouez to Lake Superior in 1665. He reached 

 the lake September 2, and went on to say: 



