down the Mississippi, and underwent the adventures which we have related.
It is stated, that at Prairie Portage, after the traders had all again collected in the spring, the Dakotas in large numbers made demonstrations to fall upon and pillage them, and the only manner in which the whites succeeded in intimidating them to forego their designs, was to heap their remaining powder kegs into a pile in the centre of their camp, and threatening to set fire to them the moment the Dakotas attempted to pillage. At Pembina the party were obliged to make new canoes of elk and buffalo hides, the seams of which, thickly covered with tallow, made them nearly as water-tight as birch canoes. In these they descended the current of the Red River, and returned to Lake Superior by the Great Lake Winnipeg, a northern route. At Rainy Lake they made birch-bark canoes, in which, late in the summer, they reached Grand Portage, the principal northwestern depot of the Northwest Company. The accounts which they gave of the country which they had explored, induced this rich company immediately to extend their operations throughout its whole extent, and this portion of their trade became known as the Fond du Lac department. The depot, or collecting point, was built at Fond du Lac, near the entry of the St. Louis River, and this post, or "Fort," was surrounded with strong cedar pickets. The remains of this old establishment are still plainly visible. In 1796, the Northwest Company built a stockaded post at Sandy Lake, and soon after, they located another at Leech Lake. These were the immediate results of Cadotte's expedition, and from that period, now sixty years ago, the Ojibways of the Upper Mississippi River have been constantly supplied with resident traders, and their former periodical visits to Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinaw ceased almost entirely.
