Lake Superior The Dalles
of the St. Louis The North Pacific Railroad Fond-du-Lac-Duluth Superior
City The Great Lake A Plan to
dry up Niagara Stage Driving Tom’s
Shanty again St. Paul and its Neighbourhood.
Almost in the centre of the Dalles
I passed the spot where the Northern Pacific Railroad
had on that day turned its first sod, commencing its
long course across the continent. This North Pacific
Railroad is destined to play a great part in the future
history of the United States; it is the second great
link which is to bind together the Atlantic and Pacific
States (before twenty years there will be many others).
From Puget Sound on the Pacific to Duluth on Lake
Superior is about 2200 miles, and across this distance
the North Pacific Railroad is to run. The immense
plains of Dakota, the grassy uplands of Montana and
Washington, and the centre of the State of Minnesota
will behold ere long this iron road of the North Pacific
Company piercing their lonely wilds. “Red
Cloud” and “Black Eagle” and “Standing
Buffalo” may gather their braves beyond the Coteau
to battle against this steam-horse which scares their
bison from his favourite breeding grounds on the scant
pastures of the great Missouri plateau; but all their
efforts will be in vain, the dollar will beat them
out. Poor Red Cloud! in spite of thy towering
form and mighty strength, the dollar is mightier still,
and the fiat has gone forth before which thou and
thy braves must pass away from the land! Very
tired and covered deep with the dust of railroad cuttings,
I reached the collection of scattered houses which
bears the name of Fond-du Lac. Upon inquiring
at the first house which I came to as to the whereabouts
of the hotel, I was informed by a sour-visaged old
female, that if I wanted to drink and get drunk, I
must go farther on; but that if I wished to behave
in a quiet and respectable manner, and could live
%without liquor, I could stay in her house, which
was at once post office, Temperance Hotel, and very
respectable. Being weary and footsore, I. did
not feel disposed to seek farther, for the place looked
clean, the river was close at hand, and the whole
aspect of the scene was suggestive of rest. In
the evening hours myriads of mosquitoes and flying
things of minutest size came forth from the wooded
hills and did their best towards making life a misery;
so bad were they that I welcomed a passing navvy who
dropped in as a real godsend.
“You’re come up to look
after work on this North Pacific Railroad, I guess?”
he commenced-he was a Southern Irish man, but “guessed”
all the same “well, now, look here,
the North Pacific Railroad will never be like the
U.P. (Union Pacific) I worked there, and I know what
it was; it was bully, I can tell you. A chap
lay in his bunk all day and got two dollars and a
half for doing it; ay, and bit the boss on the head
with his shovel if the boss gave him any d
chat. No, sirree, the North Pacific will never
be like that.”
I could not help thinking that it
was perhaps quite as well for the North Pacific Railroad
Company and the boss if they never were destined to
rival the Union Pacific Company as pictured by my companion;
but I did not attempt to say so, as it might have
come under the heading of “d
chat,” worthy only of being replied to by that
convincing argument, the shovel.
A good night’s sleep and a swim
in the St. Louis river banished all trace of toil.
I left Fond-du-Lac early in the afternoon, and, descending
by a small steamer the many-winding St. Louis River,
soon came in sight of the town of Duluth. The
heat had become excessive; the Bay of St. Louis, shut
in on all sides by lofty hills, lay under a mingled
mass of thunder-cloud and sunshine; far out in Lake
Superior vivid lightnings flashed over the gloomy
water and long rolls of thunder shook the hills around.
On board our little steamboat the atmosphere was stifling,
and could not have been short of 100 degrees in the
coolest place (it was 93 at six o’clock same
evening in the hotel at Duluth); there was nothing
for it but to lie quietly on a wooden bench and listen
to the loud talking of some fellow-passengers.
Three of the hardest of hard cases were engaged in
the mental recreation of “’swapping lies;”
their respective exchanges consisting on this occasion
of feats of stealing; the experiences of one I recollect
in particular. He had stolen an axe from a man
on the North Pacific Railroad and a few days later
sold him the same article. This Piece of knavery
was received as the acme of cuteness; and I well recollect
the language in which the brute wound up his self-laudations:
“If any chap can steal faster than me, let him.”
As we emerged from the last bend of
the river and stood across the Bay of St. Louis, Duluth,
in all its barrenness, stood before us. The future
capital of the Lakes, the great central port of the
continent, the town whose wharves were to be laden
with the teas of China and the silks of Japan stood
out on the rocky north shore of Lake Superior, the
sorriest spectacle of city that eye of man could look
upon-wooden houses scattered at intervals along a
steep ridge from which the forest had been only partially
cleared, houses of the smallest possible limits growing
out of a reedy marsh, which lay between lake and ridge,
tree-stumps and lumber standing in street and landing-place,
the swamps croaking with bull-frogs and passable only
by crazy looking planks of tilting proclivities over
all, a sun fit for a Carnatic coolie, and around, a
forest vegetation in whose heart the memory of Arctic
winter rigour seemed to live for ever. Still,
in spite of rock and swamp and icy winter, Yankee energy
will triumph here as it has triumphed else where over
kindred difficulties.
“There’s got to be a Boss
City hereaway on this end of the lake,” said
the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke
with much labour of imprecation, both needless then
and now, taking what might be termed a cursory view
of the situation, he summed up the prospects of Duluth
conclusively and clearly enough.
I cannot say I enjoyed a stay of two
days in Duluth. Several new saloons (name for
dram-shops, gaming-houses, and generally questionable
places) were being opened for the first time to the
public, and free drinks were consequently the rule.
Now “free drinks” have generally a demoralizing
tendency upon a community, but taken in connexion with
a temperature of 98 degrees in the shade, they quickly
develop into free revolvers and freer bowie-knives.
Besides, the spirit of speculation was rampant in the
hotel, and so many men had corner lots, dock locations,
pine forests, and pre-empted lands to sell me, that
nothing but flight prevented my becoming a large holder
of all manner of Duluth securities upon terms that,
upon the clearest showing, would have been ridiculously
favourable to me. The principal object of my
visit to Duluth was to discover if any settlement
existed at the Vermilion Lakes, eighty miles to the
north and not far from the track of the Expedition,
a place which had been named to the military authorities
in Canada as likely to form a base of attack for any
filibusters who would be adventurous enough to make
a dash at the communication of the expeditionary force.
A report of the discovery of gold and silver mines
around the Vermilion Lakes had induced a rush of miners
there during the previous year; but the mines had all
“bust up,” and the miners had been blown
away to other regions, leaving the plant and fixtures
of quartz-crushing machinery standing drearily in the
wilderness. These facts I ascertained from the
engineer, who had constructed a forest track from
Duluth to the mines, and into whose office I penetrated
in quest of information. He, too, looked upon
me as a speculator.
“Don’t mind them mines,”
he said, after I had questioned him on all points
of distance and road; “don’t touch them
mines; they’re clean gone up. The gold
in them mines don’t amount to a row of pines,
and there’s not a man there now.”
That evening there came a violent
thunder-storm, which cleared and cooled the atmosphere;
between ten o’clock in the morning and three
in the afternoon the thermometer fell 30 degrees.
Lake Superior had asserted its icy influence over
the sun. Glad to get away from Duluth, I crossed
the bay to Superior City, situated on the opposite,
or Wisconsin shore of the lake. A curious formation
of sand and shingle runs out from the shore of Duluth,
forming a long narrow spit of land projecting far into
Lake Superior. It bears the name of Minnesota
Point, and has evidently been formed by the opposing
influence of the east wind over the great expanse
of the lake, and the current of the St. Louis River
from the West. It has a length of seven miles,
and is only a few yards in width. Close to the
Wisconsin shore a break occurs in this long narrow
spit, and inside this opening lies the harbour and
city of Superior incomparably a better situation for
a city and lake-port, level, sheltered, capacious;
but, nevertheless, Superior City is doomed to delay,
while eight miles off its young rival is rapidly rushing
to wealth. This anomaly is easily explained.
Duluth is pushed forward by the capital of the State
of Minnesota, while the legislature of Wisconsin looks
with jealous eye upon the formation of a second lake-port
city which might draw off to itself the trade of Milwaukie.
In course of time, however, Superior
City must rise, in spite of all hostility, to the
very prominent position to which its natural advantages
entitle it. I had not been many minutes in the
hotel at Superior City before the trying and unsought
character of land speculator was again thrust upon
me.
“Now, stranger,” said
a long-legged Yankee, who, with his boots on the stove –the
day had got raw and cold and his knees considerably
higher than his head, was gazing intently at me, “’I
guess I’ve fixed you.” I was taken
aback by the sudden identification of my business,
when he continued, “Yes, I’ve just fixed
you. You air a Kanady speculator, ain’t
ye?” Not deeming it altogether wise to deny the
correct ness of his fixing, I replied I had lived
in Kanady for some time, but that I was not going
to begin speculation until I had knocked round a little.
An invitation to liquor soon followed. The disagreeable
consequence resulting from this admission soon became
apparent. I was much pestered towards evening
by offers of investment in things varying from a sand-hill
to a city-square, or what would infallibly in course
of time develop into a city-square. A gentleman
rejoicing in the name of Vose Palmer insisted upon
inter viewing me until a protracted hour of the night,
with a view towards my investing in straight drinks
for him at the bar and in an extensive pine forest
for myself some where on the north shore of Lake Superior.
I have no doubt the pine forest is still in the market;
and should any enterprising capitalist in this country
feel disposed to enter into partnership on a basis
of bearing all expenses himself, giving only the profits
to his partner, he will find “Vose Palmer, Superior
City, Wisconsin, United States,” ever ready
to attend to him.
Before turning our steps westward
from this inland ocean of Superior, it will be well
to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its
bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world
possesses not its equal. Four Hundred English
miles in length, 50 miles across it, 600 feet above
Atlantic level, 900 feet in depth-one vast spring of
purest crystal water, so cold, that during summer
months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear,
that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand
out as distinctly as though seen through plate-glass.
Follow in fancy the outpourings of this wonderful
basin; seek its future course in Huron, Erie, and
Ontario, in that wild leap from the rocky ledge which
makes Niagara famous through the world. Seek
it farther still, in the quiet loveliness of the Thousand
Isles; in the whirl and sweep of the Cedar Rapids;
in the silent rush of the great current under the rocks
at the foot of Quebec. Ay, and even farther away
still, down where the lone Laurentian Hills come forth
to look again upon that water whose earliest beginnings
they cradled along the shores of Lake Superior.
There, close to the sounding billows of the Atlantic,
2000 miles from Superior, these hills the
only ones that ever last-guard the great gate by which
the St. Lawrence seeks the sea.
There are rivers whose current, running
red with the silt and mud of their soft alluvial shores,
carry far into the ocean the record of their muddy
progress; but this glorious river system, through its
many lakes and various names, is ever the same crystal
current, flowing pure from the fountain-head of Lake
Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but they
are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters.
Steamships cover the broad bosom of its lakes and
estuaries; but they change not the beauty of the water-no
more than the fleets of the world mark the waves of
the ocean. Any person looking at the map’s
of the region bounding the great lakes of North America
will be struck by the absence of rivers flowing into
Lakes Superior, Michigan, or Huron from the south;
in fact, the drainage of the states bordering these
lakes on the south is altogether carried off by the
valley of the Mississippi-it follows that this valley
of Mississippi is at a much lower level than the surface
of the lakes. These lakes, containing an area
of some 73,000 square miles, are therefore an immense
reservoir held high over the level of the great Mississippi
valley, from which they are separated by a barrier
of slight elevation and extent.
It is not many years ago since an
enterprising Yankee proposed to annihilate Canada,
dry up Niagara, and “fix British creation”
generally, by diverting the current of Lake Erie,
through a deep canal, into the Ohio River; but should
nature, in one of her freaks of earthquake, ever cause
a disruption to this intervening barrier on the southern
shores of the great northern lakes, the drying up
of Niagara, the annihilation of Canada, and the divers
disasters to British power, will in all probability
be followed by the submersion of half of the Mississippi
states under the waters of these inland seas.
On the 26th June I quitted the shores
of Lake Superior and made my way back to Moose Lake.
Without any exception, the road thither was the very
worst I had ever travelled over four horses
essayed to drag a stage-waggon over, or rather, I
should say, through, a track of mud and ruts impossible
to picture. The stage fare amounted to $6, or
4s. for 34 miles. An extra dollar reserved the
box-seat and gave me the double advantage of knowing
what was coming in the rut line and taking another
lesson in the idiom of the American stage-driver.
This idiom consists of the smallest possible amount
of dictionary words, a few Scriptural names rather
irreverently used, a very large intermixture of “git-ups”
and ejaculatory “his,” and a general tendency
to blasphemy all round. We reached Tom’s
shanty at dusk. As before, it was crowded to excess,
and the memory of the express man’s warning
was still sufficiently strong to make me prefer the
forest to “bunking in” with the motley
assemblage; a couple of Eastern Americans shared with
me the little camp. We made a fire, laid some
boards on the ground, spread a blanket upon them, pulled
the “mosquito bars” over our heads, and
lay down to attempt to sleep. It was a vain effort;
mosquitoes came out in myriads, little atoms of gnats
penetrated through the netting of the “bars,”
and rendered rest or sleep impossible. At last,
when the gnats seemed disposed to retire, two Germans
came along, and, seeing our fire, commenced stumbling
about our boards. To be roused at two o’clock
a.m., when one is just sinking into obliviousness
after four hours of useless struggle with unseen enemies,
is provoking enough, but to be roused under such circumstances
by Germans is simply unbearable.
At last daylight came. A bathe
in the creek, despite the clouds of mosquitoes, freshened
one up a little and made Tom’s terrible table
see less repulsive. Then came a long hot day
in the dusty cars, until at length St. Paul was reached.
I remained at St. Paul some twelve
days, detained there from day to day awaiting the
arrival of letters from Canada relative to the future
supply of the Expedition. This delay was at the
time most irksome, as I too frequently pictured the
troops pushing on towards Fort Garry while I was detained
inactive in Minnesota; but one morning the American
papers came out with news that the expeditionary forces
had met with much delay in their first move from Thunder
Bay; the road over which it was necessary for them
to transport their boats, munitions, and supplies for
a distance of forty-four miles from Superior to Lake
Shebandowan was utterly impracticable, portions of
it, indeed, had still to be made, bridges to be built,
swamps to be corduroyed, and thus at the very outset
of the Expedition a long delay became necessary.
Of course, the American press held high jubilee over
this check, which was represented as only the beginning
of the end of a series of disasters. The British
Expedition was never destined to reach Red River swamps
would entrap it, rapids would engulf it; and if, in
spite of these obstacles, some few men did succeed
in piercing the rugged wilderness, the trusty rifle
of the Metis would soon annihilate the presumptive
intruders. Such was the news and such were the
comments I had to read day after day, as I anxiously
scanned the columns of the newspapers for intelligence.
Nor were these comments on the Expedition confined
to prophecy of its failure from the swamps and rapids
of the route: Fenian aid was largely spoken of
by one portion of the press. Arms and ammunition,
and hands to use them, were being pushed towards St.
Cloud and the Red River to aid the free sons of the
North-west to follow out their manifest destiny, which,
of course, was annexation to the United States.
But although these items made reading a matter of
no pleasant description, there were other things to
be done in the good city of St. Paul not without their
special interest. The Falls of the Mississippi
at St. Anthony, and the lovely little Fall of Minnehaha,
lay only some seven miles distant. Minnehaha is
a perfect little beauty; its bright sparkling waters,
forming innumerable fleecy threads! of silk-like wavelets,
seem to laugh over the rocky edge; so light and so
lace-like is the curtain, that the sunlight streaming
through looks like a lovely bride through some rich
bridal veil. The Falls of St. Anthony are neither
grand nor beautiful, and are utterly disfigured by
the various sawmills that surround them.
The hotel in which I lodged at St.
Paul was a very favourable specimen of the American
hostelry; its proprietor was, of course, a colonel,
so it may be presumed that he kept his company in
excellent order. I had but few acquaintances
in St. Paul, and had little to do besides study American
character as displayed in dining-room, lounging-hall,
and verandah, during the hot fine days; but when the
hour of sunset came it was my wont to ascend to the
roof of the building to look at the glorious panorama
spread out before me-for sunset in America is of itself
a sight of rare beauty, and the valley of the Mississippi
never appeared to better advantage than when the rich
hues of the western sun were gilding the steep ridges
that over hang it.