numbered sixty men, among whom was also a younger brother of Cadotte, named Michel, who managed an outfit on his own account.
This large party started from Sault Ste. Marie late in the summer, in large birch bark canoes, of over a ton burthen each, which were then denominated "Canoe du maitre," and made expressly for the fur trade, they being comparatively light and easily carried across portages on the shoulders of the "coureurs du bois." Cadotte coasted along the southern shores of Lake Superior, and proceeded to Fond du Lac, its extreme head. He entered the St. Louis River, and packing their canoes and equipments over the nine-mile, or "grand portage," which leads around the tremendous rapids and falls on this river, they poled up its rapid current, and proceeded by the old or prairie portage route, into Sandy Lake. From this point, my informants differ as to which route the party took. Some state, that they ascended the Mississippi to Leech Lake, crossed over to Cass Lake by a short portage, proceeded to Red Lake, thence into Red River, up which stream they proceeded a short distance and finally located their winter quarters at "Prairie portage," where they were met by two traders who had come by the Grand Portage, or Rainy Lake route, one of whom was Cameron,[1] noted as being among the earliest pioneers into these then remote northwestern regions. This is the account as given by Mr. Bruce, a half-breed Ojibway who was born at Grand Portage on Lake Superior, and is now seventy-eight years of age, still possessing a perfect and surprising memory. He was a young man at the time of this celebrated expedition, and wintered the same year of its occurrence, as an engagee, at a small trading post on Great Lake, Winnipeg,
- ↑ For a notice of Cameron see "History of Ojibways based upon official and other records" which follows Warren's History in this volume.—E.D.N.
