WERE they Mound Builders, Aztecs, Lost Tribe of Israel, 

 those first peoples of the North shore country? Surely 

 no Sioux or Chippewa ever had the ability to work the 

 copper mines of Isle Royale or the ancient mines along the 

 lake. Their hands never shaped the stray bits of pottery 

 found in those wilds or performed the engineering feats which 

 a few years ago could still be observed. Tradition does not 

 go back past the gray curtain of mystery, and it will never be 

 known by whom the work was performed or when these in- 

 dustries were at their height. 



Indian history or the tales handed down from father to son 

 do not cover more than the past four hundred years, or about 

 one hundred and fifty years before the coming of the white 

 race. It is known that the Dakotas or Sioux occupied this 

 country for a time, and before them were tribes who lived in 

 earthen lodges, traces of which are left on the upper Mis- 

 sissippi. Sixty years ago, they were to be plainly seen at 

 Sandy lake, Aitkin county, while others were found at the 

 mouth of Pine river, Gull lake and elsewhere. A pine hun- 

 dreds of years old was found growing on one of these mounds, 

 this mound in particular being one hundred feet long and four 

 feet high, used very likely as a council lodge. Human bones 

 have been found in wild disorder in these mounds, which 

 might be interpreted as a massacre of the inhabitants, where 

 if the mound had been used for burial purposes, the bodies 

 would doubtlessly have been put into it in a more regular 

 manner. 



These people were driven from the country by the Sioux, 

 but who they were it is hard to guess. One authority brings 

 forward the argument that they were of the tribe of Gros 

 Ventres Indians found by the whites beyond the Missouri 

 river, and substantiates his theory with a story of a piece of 

 birch bark which an old Chippewa chief had seen among these 

 people and which did not grow in the Missouri valley. On 



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