[43] Description of Lake Superior, with the Ceremony of Indian Adoption.
Having taken in Indian corn, and hard grease, (the food all traders carry to the upper country) and exchanged
my large canoes, or maître canots, for smaller ones, the latter being more convenient to transport across
the carrying places, and better calculated to run into small
creeks, we proceeded to the Falls of St. Mary, (a strait so
called) which is formed by two branches that separate
from each other at the furthest point of the lake. Here
is a small picketted fort built by the Indians, and about
ten log houses for the residence of English and French
traders. The nation of the Sauteurs formerly were settled
at the foot of the Falls, and the Jesuits had a house
near them.[1] At this place there is abundance of fine
fish, particularly pickerill, trout, and white fish of an
uncommon size. From this place we continued our
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- ↑ The normal food of those who wintered in the woods was Indian corn
and tallow. See Turner, "Fur Trade in Wisconsin,” pp. 78, 79.
The Falls of St. Mary, or Sault Ste. Marie, were visited by traders as early as 1616. The Jesuit Relation of 1640 gives a partial description of this place. Radisson and Groseilliers were here between 1658 and 1660; and here (1669) a Jesuit mission was established by Allouez and Dablon. After 1689, the mission and trading post were abandoned in favor of Mackinac; but Sault Ste. Marie continued to be a station on the Northwestern fur-trade route; and in 1750 the land thereabout was granted to De Repentigny on condition that he erect a fort at that place. After the English occupation, a French Canadian, J. B. Cadot, had a trading post here, which was probably the one mentioned by Long. Later, the North West Company occupied the spot; but in 1814 its post was burned by a detachment of American troops, commanded by Major Holmes, who afterwards fell at the unsuccessful attack on Mackinac. The first military post and Indian agency of the United States at Sault Ste. Marie was established in 1822.
The Saulteurs were a Chippewa tribe, so called by the French from having been first encountered at the Sault. The name afterwards was employed to designate all the Chippewa nation. A pretty Indian legend of the origin of these falls, is found in Jesuit Relations, liv, p. 201.―Ed.
