about the year 1730, his village remained without a trader, and it was a practice with his bands, as had been before with the tribe when congregated at Shaug-a-waum-ik-ong, to make visits each spring to the nearest French posts on Lake Superior, Grand Portage, and Sault Ste. Marie, to procure in return for their rich packs of fur, clothing, trinkets, fire-arms, and ammunition, and above all, the baneful fire-water which they had already learned to love dearly.
The band who lived at Rainy Lake, and those who had already pierced as far north as Pembina and Red Lake, often joined the Kenisteno and Assineboins on their yearly journeys towards Hudson's Bay for the same purpose; the English in this direction having early opened the trade, and actively opposed the French who came by the routes of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River.
