203 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 12, 1904. 
NAN TOIM. 
Trails of the Pathfinders. 
III. — Alexander Henty, 
{Continued.) 
The French Government had estabhshed regulations 
governmg the fur trade in Canada, and in 1765, when 
Henry made his second expedition, some features of the 
old system were still preserved. No person was per- 
mitted to enter the countries lying northwest of Detroit 
unless furnished with a license, and military commanders 
had the privilege of granting to any individual the exclu- 
sive trade of particular districts. 
At this time beaver were worth two shillings and six- 
pence per pound ; otter skins, six shillings each ; martens, 
one shilling and sixpence; all this in nominal Michili- 
mackinac currency, although here fur was still the cur- 
rent coin. Henry loaded his four canoes with the value 
of ten thousand pounds' weight of good and merchantable 
beaver. For provision he purchased fifty bushels of corn, 
at ten pounds of beaver per bushel. He took into partner- 
ship Mr. Cadotte, and leaving Michilimackinac July 14, 
and Sault Sainte-Marie the 26th, he proceeded to his 
wintering ground at Chagouemig. On the 19th of August 
he reached the river Ontonagan, notable for its abundance 
of native copper, which the Indians used to manufacture 
into spoons and bracelets for themselves. This they did 
by the mere process of hammering it out. Not far beyond 
this river he met Indians, to whom he gave credit. "The 
■ prices were for a stroud blanket, ten beaver skins ; for a 
white blanket, eight; a pound of powder, two; a pound 
of shot, or of ball, one; a gun, twenty; an ax of one 
pound weight, two; a knife, one." As the value of a skin 
was about one dollar, the prices to the Indians were 
fairly high. 
Chagouemig, where Henry wintered, is now known as 
Chequamegon. It is in Wisconsin, a bay which partly 
divides Bayfield from Ashland county, and seems always 
to have been a great gathering place for Indians. There 
were now about fifty lodges here, making, with those 
who had followed Henry, about one hundred families. 
All were poor, their trade having been interfered with 
by the English invasion of Canada, and by Pontiac's war. 
Henry was obliged to- distribute goods to them to the 
amount of three thousand beaver skins, and this done, 
the Indians separated to look for fur. Henry sent a clerk 
to Fond du Lac with two loaded canoes; Fond du Lac 
being, roughly, the site of the present city of Duluth. -As 
soon as Henry was fairly settled, he built a house, and 
began to collect fish from the lake as food for the winter. 
Before long he had two thousand trout and whitefish, 
the former frequently weighing fifty pounds each, the 
latter from four to six. They were preserved by being 
hung up by the tail, and did not thaw during the winter. 
When the bay froze over, Henry amused himself by 
spearing trout, and sometimes caught a hundred in a day, 
each weighing, on an average, twenty pounds. 
He had some difficulty with the first hunting party 
which brought furs. The men crowded into his house 
and demanded rum, and when he refused it, they threat- 
ened to take all he had. His men were frightened, and . 
all abandoned him. He got hold of a gun, however, and 
on threatening to shoot the first who should lay hands on 
anything, the disturbance began to subside, and was 
presently at an end. He now buried the liquor that he 
had, and when the Indians were finally persuaded that he 
had none to give them, they went and came very peace- 
ably, paying their debts, and purchasing goods. 
The ice broke up in April, and by the middle of May 
the Indians began to come in with their furs, so that by 
the close of the spring Henry found himself with a 
hundred and fifty packs of beaver, weighing a hundred 
pounds each, besides twenty-five packs of otter and mar- 
ten skins. These he took to Michilimackinac, accom- 
panied by fifty canoes of Indians, who still had a hun- 
dred packs of beaver that they did not sell. It appears, 
therefore, that Henry's ten thousand pounds of beaver 
brought him fifty per cent, profit in beaver, besides the 
otter and the marten skins which he had. 
On his way back he went up the Ontonagan River to 
. see the celebrated mass of copper there, which he esti- 
mated to weigh no less than five tons. So pure was it 
that with an ax he chopped off a piece weighing a hun- 
ared pounds. This great mass of copper, which had been 
worked at for no one knows how long by Indians and by 
early explorers, lay there for eighty years after Henry 
saw it; and finally, in 1843, was removed to the Smith- 
sonian Institution at Washington. It was then estimated 
to weigh between three and four tons, and the cost of 
transporting it to the national capital was about $3,500. 
The following winter was passed at Sault Sainte-Marie, 
and was rather an unhappy one, as the fishery failed, and 
there was great suffering from hunger. Canadians and 
Indians came in from the surrounding country, driven in 
by lack of food. Among the incidents of the winter was 
the arrival of a young man who had been guilty of can- 
nibalism. He was killed by the Indians, not so much as 
punishment for the acts that he had committed, as from 
fear that he would kill and eat some of their children. 
A journey to a neighboring bay resulted in no great 
g;atch of fish, and returning to the Sault, Henry started 
for Michihmackinac. At the first encampment, an hour's 
fishing procured them seven trout, of from ten to twenty 
pounds' weight. A little later they met a camp of Indians 
who had fish, and shared with them; and the following 
day Henry killed a caribou, by which they camped, and 
on which they subsisted for two days. 
The following winter Henry stopped at Michipicoten, 
on the north side of Lake Superior, and about a hundred 
and fifty miles from the Sault. Here there were a few 
people ^known as Gens des Terres, a tribe of Algonquians, 
living m middle Canada, and ranging from the Athabasca 
country east to Lake Temiscamingue. A few of them still 
live near die St. Maurice River, in the Province of 
Quebec. These people, though miserably poor, and occu- 
pying a country containing very few animals, had a high 
reputation for honesty and worth. Therefore Henry gave 
to every man credit for one hundred beaver skins, and to 
every woman, thirtj^ — a very large credit. 
There was some game in this country, a few caribou, 
and some hares and partridges. The hills were well 
wooded with sugar-maples, and from these, when spring 
came, Henry made sugar; and for a time this was their 
sole provision, each man consuming a pound a day, de- 
siring no other food, and being visibly nourished by the 
sugar. Soon after this, wildfowl appeared in such 
abundance that subsistence for fifty men could without 
difficulty be shot daily by one; but this lasted only for a 
week, by which time the birds all departed. By the end of 
May all to whom Henry had advanced goods returned, 
and of the two thousand skins for which he had given 
them credit, not thirty remained unpaid. The small loss 
that he did sufTer was occasioned by the death of one of 
the Indians, whose family brought all the skins of which 
he died possessed, and offered to contribute among them- 
selves the balance. 
The following winter was also to be passed at Michipi- 
coten, and in the month of October, after all the Indians 
had received their goods and had gone away, Henry set 
out for the Sault on a visit. He took little provision, 
only a quart of corn for each person. 
On the first night they camped on an island sacred to 
Nanibojou, one of the Chippewa gods, and failed to of?er 
the tobacco, which an Indian would always have presented 
to the spirit. In the night a violent storm arose which 
continued for three days. When it abated on the third 
day they went to examine the net which they had set for 
fish, and found it gone. The wind was ahead to return 
to Michipicoten, and they steered for the Sault; but that 
night the wind shifted and blew a gale for nine days fol- 
lowing. They soon began to starve, and though Henry 
hunted faithfully, he killed nothing more than two snow- 
birds. One of his men informed him that the other two 
had proposed to kill and eat a young woman, whom they 
were taking to the ^Sault, and when taxed with the 
proposition, these two men had the hardihood to acknowl- 
edge it. The next morning, Henry, still searching for 
food, found on a rock the tripe de roche, which is more 
or less well known as a lichen, which, when cooked, yields 
a jelly which will support life. The discovery of this 
food, on which they supported themselves thereafter, un- 
doubtedly saved the life of the poor woman. When they 
embarked on the eveniqg of the ninth day they were weak 
and miserable ; but, luckily, the next morning, meeting 
two canoes of Indians, they received a gift of fish, and at 
once landed to feast on them. 
In the spring of 1769, and for some years afterward, 
Henry turned his attention more or less to mines. He 
visited the, He de Maurepas, said to contain shining 
locks and stones of rare description, but was much dis- 
appointed in the island, which seemed commonplace - 
enough. A year later Mr. Baxter, with whom Henry 
had formed a partnership for copper mining, returned, 
and during the following winter, at Sault Sainte-Marie, 
they built vessels for navigating the lakes. Henry had 
heard of an island in Lake Superior described as covered 
with a heavy yellow sand like gold dust, and guarded by 
enormous snakes. With Mr. Baxter he searched for this 
island and finally found it, but neither yellow sands, nor 
snakes, nor gold. Hawks there were in abundance, and 
one of them picked Henry's cap from his head. There 
were also caribou, and they killed thirteen, and found 
many complete and undisturbed skeletons. Continuing 
their investigations into the mines about the lakes, they 
found abundant copper ore ; and some supposed to con- 
tain silver. But their final conclusion was that the cost 
(T carrying the copper ore to Montreal must exceed its 
marketable value. 
In June, 1775, Henry left Sault Sainte-Marie with four 
large canoes and twelve small ones, carrying goods and 
provisions to the value of three thousand pounds sterling. 
He passed west, over the Grand Portage, entered Lac A 
la Pluie, passed down to the Lake of the Woods, and 
finally reached Lake Winipegon. Here there were Crees, 
i/ariously known as . Christinaux, Kinistineaux, Killisti- 
noes, and Killistinaux. Lake Wjnipegon is sometimes 
called the Lake of the Crees. These people were primi- 
tive. Almost entirely naked, the whole body was painted 
with red ochre ; the head was wholly shaved, or the hair 
was plucked out, except a spot on the crown, where it 
grew long and was rolled and gathered into a tuft; the 
cars were pierced, and filled with bones of fishes and land 
animals. The women, on the other hand, had long hair, 
which was gathered into a roll on either side of the 
head above the ear, and was covered with a piece of 
skin, painted or ornamented with beads of various colors. 
The traditions of the Cheyennes of to-day point back to 
precisely similar methods of dressing the hair of the 
women and of painting the men. 
The Crees were friendly, and gave the traveler presents 
cf wild rice and dried meat. He kept on along the lake, 
and soon joined Peter Pond, a well-known trader of early 
days. A little later, in early September, the two Fro- 
bishers and Mr. Patterson overtook them. On the ist of 
October they reached the River de Bourbon, now known 
as the Saskatchewan, and proceeded up it, using the tow- 
line to overcome the Great Rapids. They passed on into 
Lake de Bourbon, now Cedar Lake, and by old Fort 
Bourbon, built by the Sieur de Verendrye. At the mouth 
of the Pasquayah River they found a village of Swampy 
Crees, the chief of whom expressed his gratification at 
their coming, but remarked that, as it would be possible 
for him to kill them all when they returned, he expected 
them to be extremely liberal with their presents. He then 
specified what it was that he desired, namely, three casks 
of gunpowder, four bags of shot and ball, two bales of 
tobacco, three kegs of rum. and three guns, together with 
many smaller articles. Finally he declared that he was 
a peaceable man, and always tried to get along without 
quarrels. The traders were obliged to submit to being 
thus robbed, and passed on up the river to Cumberland 
House. Here they separated, Mr. Cadotte going on with 
four canoes to the Fort des Prairies, a name given then 
and later to many of the trading posts built on the 
prairie. This one is probably that Fort des Prairies which 
was situated just below the junction of the north and 
south forks of the Saskatchewan River, and was known 
as Fort Nippewen. Mr. Pond, with two canoes, went to 
p-ort Dauphin, on Lake Dauphin, while the Messrs. Fro- 
bisher and Henry agreed to winter together on Beaver 
Lake. Here they found a good place for a post, and 
were soon well lodged. Fish were abundant, and the 
post soon assumed the appearance of a settlement. Owing 
to the lateness of the season, their canoes could not be 
buried in the ground, as was the common practice, and 
they were therefore placed on scaffolds. The fishing here 
was very successful, and moose were killed. The Indians 
brought in beaver and bear's meat, and some skins for 
sale. 
In January, '76, Henry left the fort on Beaver Lake, 
attended by two men, and provided with dried meat, 
irozen fish, and cornmeal, to make an excursion over the 
plains, "or, as the French denominate them, the Prairies, 
or Meadows." There was snow on the ground, and the 
baggage was hauled by the men on sledges. The cold was 
bitter, but they were provided with "ox skins, which the 
traders call buffalo robes." 
Beaver Lake was in the wooded country, and, indeed, 
all Henry's journeyings hitherto had been through a 
region that was timbered; but here, striking south and 
west, by way of Cumberland House, he says, "I was not 
far advanced before the country betrayed some approaches 
to the characteristic nakedness of the plains. The wood 
dwindled away, both in size and quantity, so that it was 
with difficulty we could collect sufficient for making a 
fire, and without fire We could not drink, for melted snow 
was our only resource, the ice on the river being too thick 
to be penetrated by the ax." Moreover, the weather was 
bitterly cold, and after a time provisions grew scanty. 
No game was seen and no trace of anything human. The 
men began to starve and to grow weak, but as tracks of 
elk and moose were seen, Henry cheered them up by tell- 
ing them that they would certainly kill something before 
long. 
"On the twentieth, the last remains of our provisions 
were expended ; but I had taken the precaution to conceal 
a cake of chocolate in reserve for an occasion like that 
which was now arrived. Toward evening my men, after 
walking the whole day, began to lose their strength, but 
we nevertheless kept on our feet till it was late, and when 
we encamped I informed them of the treasure which was 
still in store. I desired them to fill the kettle with snow, 
and argued with them the while that the chocolate would 
keep us alive for five days at least, an interval in which 
we should surely meet with some Indian at the chase. 
Their spirits revived at the suggestion, and, the kettle 
being filled with two gallons of water, I put into it one 
square of the chocolate. The quantity was scarcely suffi- 
cient to alter the color of the water, but each of us drank 
half a gallon of the warm liquor, by which we were 
much refreshed, and in its enjoyment felt no more of the 
fatigues of the day. In the morning we allowed ourselves 
a similar repast, after finishing which we marched vigor- 
ously for six hours. But now the spirits of my com- 
panions again deserted them, and they declared that they 
neither would, nor could, proceed any further. For my- 
self, they advised me to leave them, and accomplish the 
journey as I could; but for themselves, they said, that 
they must die soon, and might as well die where they 
were as anywhere else. 
"While things were in this melancholy posture, I filled 
the kettle and boiled another square of chocolate. When 
prepared I prevailed upon my desponding companions to 
return to their warm beverage. On taking it they re- 
covered inconceivably, and, after smoking a pipe, con- 
