554 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 12, 1890. 



It may be only the oft-told tale of destruction by fire and the 

 axe, but if by the latter, the lumbermen ought to know some- 

 thing about it. But from the discovery of Mr. Ayers I suspect 

 that more careful inquiry will lead to finding the tree in other 

 localities, for I shall assume that Schoolcraft knew whereof he 

 wrote. 



The expedition went up the St. Louis River, which flows 

 into Lake Superior at its western extremity, then called Fond du 

 Lac Bay. From the St. Louis it crossed over to Sandy Lake, 

 which is tributary to the Mississippi, and is situated in the 

 county next west of Carlton. There it ascended the Missis- 

 sippi as far as Cass Lake, which it took to be the source of the 

 river. But I find no reference to the Hemlock which could be 

 assigned to a range west of Carlton County, and have noticed 

 none at all in Schoolcraft's account of his expedition in 1832 to 

 Itasca Lake, which, however, is purposely abbreviated where 

 the same ground was traversed. The first mention of the tree 

 which can be assigned to Minnesota is during the passage of 

 the Grand Portage of the St. Louis, the foot of which is placed 

 in the itinerary twenty-three miles above its entrance into the 

 bay. By a chain of rapids and falls the river makes a rapid 

 descent of nine miles, around which boats and baggage had 

 to be carried. Five " pauses " were made the first day of the 

 ascent, a " pause," in the reckoning of the voyageur, averaging 

 half a mile. The next day the party toiled on in a heavy rain, 

 and the journal in part describes their experiences as follows : 

 " We are advancing into a dreary region. Everything around 

 us wears a wild and sterile aspect, and the extreme ruggedness 

 of the country, the succession of swampy grounds and rocky 

 precipices, the dark forest of Hemlock and Pines which over- 

 shadows the soil, and the distant roaring of the river, would 

 render it a gloomy and dismal scene without the toil of trans- 

 porting baggage and the saddening influence of one of the 

 most dreary days " (p. 206). In the journal for the following 

 day (July 8th), on which they halted, Schoolcraft gives a more 

 extended account of the objects of interest observed, quite 

 minutely noting the more prominent geological and vegetable 

 features, as is seen in this extract: "The growth of trees is 

 Pine, Hemlock, Spruce, Birch, Oak and Maple, the former 

 predominating. In clambering among the rocks along the 

 river I found the red Raspberry ripe. This appears to be the 

 common Rubus strigosus with a thornless stem ; berries scar- 

 let-red, very sweet ; akenes lightly adhering. Where depres- 

 sions exist in the surface of the soil, so that it remains wet and 

 marshy, the Tamarack is found, and the White Cedar is seen 

 overhanging the cliffs on the banks of the river, and adds very 

 much to the picturesque appearance of the St. Louis at this 

 place" (p. 207). From the head of the Grand Portage they go 

 on six miles to the Portage aux Couteaux, the "Portage of 

 Knives," so named because the outcropping edges of vertically 

 arranged layers of slate rock cut the moccasins and feet of the 

 voyageurs making the passage. Its extent is a mile and a half. 

 " The growth of trees here is almost exclusively Cedar, Pine 

 and Spruce." 



The difficulties attending the further ascent of the St. Louis 

 being great, Governor Cass sent from this point a party of six- 

 teen, including Schoolcraft and Indian guides, to see if a 

 shorter and more expeditious road did not exist between it and 

 Sandy Lake. The main expedition kept on by the usual route, 

 the exploration by the detachment being for future guidance. 

 But the obstacles encountered seem to have been of a more 

 serious character than those of the ordinary route. It was rep- 

 resented as a two days' journey, but it took the party from the 

 morning of July 10th till noon of the 13th to reach the lake, 

 much of the way being in a very difficult forest. In the 

 account of the first day this description occurs : " Our guides, 

 taking their course by the sun, immediately struck into a close, 

 matted forest of Pine and Hemlock, through which we urged 

 our way with some difficulty. On traveling two miles we fell 

 into an Indian path leading in the required direction, which we 

 followed until it became lost in swamps. After pursuing it two 

 miles, we passed through a succession of ponds and marshes, 

 where the mud and the water were in some places half-leg 

 deep. These marshes continued four miles, and were suc- 

 ceeded by a strip of three miles of open, dry, sandy barren, 

 covered with shrubbery, and occasionally clumps of Pitch 

 Pines. This terminated in a thick forest of Hemlock and 

 Spruce, of a young growth, which continued two miles, and 

 brought us to the banks of a small lake, with clear water and 

 a pebbly shore" (page 210). Two more small lakes were 

 passed soon after, and going on from the last of these for 

 eight miles through a swamp of Tamarack, called by the 

 author Pinns pendula, they came to another lake, by which 

 they encamped, the whole distance made during the day being 

 given as twenty miles. My copy of the book is unfortunately 



without the map published with it, but from a similar one 

 given in the account of the expedition of 1832, and from the 

 position of Knife Falls, from which they set out, this journey 

 may reasonably be located in the northern tier of townships of 

 Carlton County, or near by. In "Rand and McNally's Sec- 

 tional Map of Minnesota" four small lakes are found not far 

 apart in Township 49, Ranges 18 and 19, or, since the last 

 stage of the day would indicate a lake somewhat farther off 

 than any of these are from each other, they may have gone 

 farther south into the next tier of townships to a lake near 

 Kettle River. 



The next day they went on for nine hours in the swamp, the 

 distance made during the day being given as fourteen miles. It 

 was a very fatiguing journey, under guides uncertain about the 

 way. Schoolcraft gives the following account of some of the 

 experiences nf the day : "The dreadful storms which prevail 

 here at certain seasons are indicated by the prostration of en- 

 tire forests, and the uprooting of the firmest trees. These lie 

 invariably pointing toward the south-east, indicating the 

 strongest winds to prevail from the opposite point. It is one 

 of the most fatiguing labors of the route to cross these im- 

 mense windfalls. The trees are chiefly Tamarack, Spruce, 

 Cedar, Ash, White Birch and Hemlock. In the course of the 

 day we have crossed a turbid stream running toward the 

 south, called Akeek Seebe (Kettle River), which is tributary to 

 the Missisawgaiegon, which enters the Mississippi a short dis- 

 tance above the falls of St. Anthony, after having passed in the 

 intermediate distance through the Great Spirit Lake" (page 2 14). 

 This is in part a geographical error, as no rivers from this 

 region go into the Mississippi except by Sandy Lake or the St. 

 Croix. But Kettle River is tributary to the St. Croix, and it 

 rises in the northern tier of townships of Carlton County not 

 far west of the lakes mentioned above. This is the last men- 

 tion of the Hemlock in the narrative as far as I have observed. 

 On the 12th they went on for twelve hours in the swamp, 

 emerging at nightfall, and encamping by a small stream called 

 " Buffaloe Creek," tributary to Sandy Lake, which was reached 

 the next day. 



The body of the expedition continued their course up the 

 St. Louis to the mouth of the East Savannah River, and by 

 this and the West Savannah passed. over to Sandy Lake. 

 Schoolcraft requested Dr. Wolcott, physician of the expedi- 

 tion, to act as naturalist in his absence. It is not definitely 

 stated in the short account he gave that the Hemlock con- 

 tinued to be found, though it may be included in the state- 

 ment he makes that the banks of the river above the Portage 

 aux Couteaux were "always covered with a thick growth of 

 Birch, Elm, Sugar-tree (Acer saccharinitm) and the whole tribe 

 of Pines, with an almost impenetrable thicket of underbrush." 

 Most of the botanical writers of the time included the Hem- 

 lock, Spruces and Firs under the genus Pinus. 



From these extracts and statements it is safe to conclude 

 that the Hemlock was a well known tree in this region in 1820, 

 and that it extended, at least, well toward the western limits of 

 the territory now included in Carlton County. And I may add 

 that in going northward from Duluth to Two Harbors by the 

 shore of Lake Superior, in the summer of 1889, I thought the 

 Hemlock was one of the trees observed from the cars while 

 passing. But in this I may have been mistaken, though I 

 have reported the tree as present there. In a doubtful case 

 thorough identification would demand closer inspection of a 

 tree than can be had when the observer is in rapid motion. But 

 as the Hemlock is reported by Agassiz among the plants of 

 the northern shore of Lake Superior, it is not unreasonable to 

 suppose it may be found at its western extremity. In his list 

 of plants gathered, and given in connection with the topic 

 headed "Observations on the Vegetation of the Northern 

 Shores of Lake Superior" (page 165), he names no locality for 

 the Hemlock, so that it is not easy to determine how far west 

 it was found,, the expedition having gone as far as the Victoria 

 Islands, or nearly to the United States boundary, before 

 turning homeward. 



It might be deemed more satisfactory if Schoolcraft had 

 somewhere given the botanical name of the Hemlock, as he 

 does at times of other plants. But I do not find its scientific 

 name in any of the three volumes of his explorations in this sec- 

 tion or immediately south. But the tisics loquendi,bo\h.'m com- 

 mon and scientific language, at the time, is sufficient proof that 

 the Hemlock-Spruce (Tsuga Canadensis, Carriere, Pinus Cana- 

 densis, Lin., and authors) was meant. As the equivalent of P. 

 Canadensis, Hemlock, or more commonly Hemlock-Spruce, is 

 given by the following authors about that time : Pursh (1814), 

 Nuttall (1818), Barton (1818), Elliott (1824)— a list not intended 

 to be exhaustive, but representative. 



Englewood, Chicago. E. J ' . Hill. 



