who have been enlightened by it, are not so superior to the Savages as one should naturally expect to find them.
In this rock there are several cavities near a mile in length, and about twenty feet in width, arched at the top. The lake freezes only close to the shore, the water being constantly in a swell, and the waves frequently mountains high, which is easily accounted for, when we consider its immense extent. On a calm day, a little distance from shore, sturgeon may be seen in very deep water. The surrounding land is high and rocky, and the woods extremely thick. The palm, birch, ash, spruce, and cedar, grow large, and in great abundance. The North-west Company, established at Montreal, keep a vessel on [45] the lake to transport their goods from Michillimakinac to the grand portage on the north-west side, and return with the peltry collected in the inlands.[1]
On the 4th of July we arrived at Pays Plat,[2] on the north
east side of the Lake, where we unpacked our goods, and
made the bales smaller, having, by the Indian accounts,
one hundred and eighty carrying places to the part where
I intended to winter. On our landing we discovered at
some distance a number of Indians, which induced us to
accelerate the arrangement of the cargo, in case of barter,
and be prepared to embark when the business was finished.
Every thing being properly secured, I made up to the
Savages, and calculated their number at one hundred and
————
- ↑ Probably the "Athabasca," one of the first schooners of the North West Company on Lake Superior. See Masson, Bourgeois, ii, p. 149. The French had a sailing vessel on Lake Superior as early as 1735. See Wisconsin Historical Collections, xvii.—Ed.
- ↑ Pays Plat was the fur-trade station near the Nipigon River, about one hundred miles east of Grand Portage. It was situated on one of the islands of Nipigon Bay, and so named because of the low land and shoal water in the vicinity. See Bigsby, Shoe and Canoe (London, 1850), p. 223.—Ed.
