80 F.arlij Man in NortJieastern Minnesota — Stunfz. 



stream o£ from 500 to 800 feet in the distance of half a mile. But 

 the nature of this channel is now visible at a few points between 

 the seven artificial lak-s that have been made by dams of boulders 

 thrown across the valley making the 12 miles of the river from 

 the Esquegamo or lowest lake to Wine portage with its five por- 

 tages the easiest part of the canoe route from Duluth to Vermillion 

 lake. At the crossing of the wagon road at the bridge is a dam 

 composed of rounded boulders entirely, and of such size that the 

 heaviest spring floods cannot move them from the grade they are 

 placed at. This dam formerly held the water three feet higher 

 than at present and is about 1000 feet long on the south side of 

 the river. It has been lowered laterally to allow canoes to pass 

 without making a portage, and this lowering of the dam has been 

 s. damage to the navigation on two shoals between lakes above. 

 I cannot leave this locality without calling attention to some facts 

 that would seem to indicate that quite a settlement of these people 

 resided in the vicinity of these lakes. 



On the south side of Esquegamo lake, about forty rods from 

 the shore, situated on a sandy plain, is a mound about twenty feet 

 in diameter and seven feet high. This mound is in a thick growth 

 of jack pines. 



About two miles northeast of this mound opposite the third 

 lake is a grove of plum bushes, ancient burr oak trees, lindens and 

 elms growing on the upland. There are no other trees of these 

 species on the uplands in the whole region. 



The prevailing timber is coniferous, mixed with the white 

 birch and aspen poplar. If these lakes are artificial the construct- 

 ion of the necessary dams would have required a large number of 

 workmen a term of years. At Wine portage the stream falls 36 feet 

 over a dam of bowlders. In seasons of high water these rapids 

 can be run by canoes coming down stream. The fall is about six 

 feet in a hundred for 600 feet. At this point the channel 

 is straight; another evidence, that it was constructed to be used by 

 boats bound down stream. No voyageur could manage a canoe in 

 a crooked channel where the craft was moving at the rate of speed 

 equal to a railroad train. At the upper end of the portage the dam 

 was raised high enough to flood the water back for nine miles up 

 the valley to a point where the Iron Range Railroad crosses the 

 stream. The lake thus formed covered from 10,000 to 15,000 acres 

 of land, and has been maintained so long that it is filled up with a 



