Chapter XIII: The Mississippi and Its Chief Affluents

WHILE the expeditions lately described were in progress, efforts were being made by private individuals to supplement the work of Lewis, Clarke, and Pike. The lower course of the Red River was explored from Natchez by Mr. Dunbar and Dr. Hunter, and its upper waters were navigated by Dr. Sibley from Natchitoches, but nothing further was done toward determining the true sources of the Mississippi itself, until 1820, when Governor Cass, then in charge of Michigan territory, obtained permission to visit the highlands of Minnesota, and the great expedition under Long and James was sent by the United States Government to trace the course of its mightiest affluent, the Missouri.

Cass and his companions, accompanied by an escort of thirty-eight men, left Detroit, the capital of Michigan, in the spring of 1820, and made their way along the coasts of Lakes Huron and Superior to the borders of Minnesota, where they struck comparatively new ground, crossing the lovely basin of the St. Lawrence in a north-westerly direction, and reaching the shores of Sandy Lake in the middle of July. On the 17th of the same month, the canoes brought for the purpose were launched on the waters of the Mississippi, and the actual voyage of exploration began.

The strong current of the mighty Father of Waters rendered the ascent extremely arduous, and after a struggle, extending over one hundred and fifty miles, a series of impassable cataracts were reached, necessitating the carrying of the canoes and baggage for a considerable distance overland.

Beyond these cataracts, the Mississippi wound through extensive and beautiful plains, haunted by deer, buffaloes, and other large game, till the junction of the Leech Lake branch was reached, where the scenery became more mountainous. Another forty-five miles brought the explorers to the vast expanse of clear water known as Lake Winnipeg, where the river takes a sudden bend of fifty miles to the west, expanding beyond into a lake larger than any that had yet been traversed. To this the name of Cass was given, in honor of the leader of the expedition; and, provisions now running short, it was resolved to turn back. To us who have access only to the official reports of the work done, the result obtained on this trip seems to have been very inadequate to the preparations made; but, as we have more than once had occasion to feel, it is in the byways rather than the highways of our present subject that our pulse is stirred in sympathy with heroic deeds. The history of American exploration, properly so called, is almost entirely wanting in that element of romance, springing from the conquering of apparently insurmountable difficulties, which lends so subtle a charm to the record of the solving of the problems of African geography.

Long and James, leaders of the second of the two expeditions we have alluded to, embarked at St. Louis in a steam packet named the _Western Engineer_, the first to be launched on the inland waters of the Republic, in July, 1819; but a little above the mouth of the Kansas, they were robbed of all they possessed by Pawnee Indians, and compelled to return and refit.

Early in September a second start was made; but the season was now so far advanced that it was necessary to winter near the mouth of the Platte, or Nebraska, so that it was not until the summer of 1820 that the actual journey of discovery can be said to have commenced. The first purpose of the expedition was now, in obedience to orders from headquarters, laid aside for a time, while a trip was made up the Nebraska, which was followed through the extensive level tracts ――traversed by vast hordes of bisons and antelopes of various kinds, and rich in quarries of sandstone and limestone――forming the Platte valley, until the point at which the Nebraska divides into two forks was reached.

Here a halt was made, and it was resolved to follow the southern branch to its source in the Rocky Mountains. On the 30th June, the first buttresses of that now well known chain came in sight; and on the 6th of the ensuing month, the camp was pitched opposite the chasm from which the Platte issues from its mountain home on its way to its junction, first with its northern branch, and then with the Missouri.

At this point, situated in N. lat. 39°, W. long. 105°, the Rocky Mountains presented an almost impassable barrier, a perpendicular wall of sandstone, some 200 feet high, running along on either side as far as the eye could reach, with granite masses towering beyond it to the sky. Several attempts were made to scale this wall, and from one height gained a view was obtained of both branches of the Platte, one coming from the north-west and the other from the south, but it was found impossible to reach the actual source of either.

A different route was now attempted, and, advancing in single file, the explorers had succeeded in reaching a great height, when their progress was again arrested by huge frowning precipices, along which no foothold could be obtained. With the aid of ropes, brought in readiness for some such emergency, several of the bravest of the party were lowered down a ravine, and reached the southern side of the wall, where they halted and refreshed themselves with what they took to be some bunches of wild currants. They had better have continued to endure the thirst from which they had been suffering, as this simple refreshment brought on violent headaches; and a little later, when one of the men paused to drink at what looked like a pure mountain spring, sickness immediately succeeded. The poor fellow had to be sent back, and only recovered after much suffering.

These two incidents determined the leader of the party to make no further halt until the descent of the western slope of the mountain was achieved, and his men were pressing on as best they could, when they were again stopped, this time by meeting a large bear in a narrow defile. In a moment a dozen rifles were pointed at the intruder, but before a shot could be fired, the huge brute turned aside, and climbed an almost perpendicular precipice some thirty feet high, leaving his enemies to gaze after him with almost envious wonder.

On the morning of the 13th July, the courage and perseverance of the advanced guard were amply rewarded by their coming in sight of the loftiest peak yet noticed, which, on examination, turned out to be the one already marked in Major Pike’s map, bearing his name, and situated in N. lat. 38° 53′, W. long. 105° 52′.

The main object of the expedition was now accomplished, the almost precise situation of the sources of the Nebraska having been determined. Pike’s Peak was ascended by a few adventurous spirits, and from its summit a magnificent view was obtained of masses of snow and ice, succeeded by fertile valleys and vast plains stretching away to the east. Careful notes having been taken of the main features of the scene, the explorers returned to camp, where they were in due course joined by their comrades, and an earnest consultation was held as to the next steps to be taken.

It was finally resolved that the head-waters of the Arkansas, the largest affluent of the Mississippi after the Missouri, and of several of its minor tributaries, should now be sought; and, with this end in view, a south-westerly course was pursued along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountain Chain. A weary march across the low, bare, sandy plains of the present state of Wyoming, strewn with broken sandstone, brought our heroes to the brink of the precipice dividing these lofty table-lands from the valley of the Arkansas, where they were alike cheered and tantalized by the sight of the river they were seeking, flowing through a rich and fertile country.

It was now decided to divide forces; ♦Major Long and most of the men, with all the heavy baggage, to go down the Arkansas to the Mississippi and await the rest of the party at Fort Smith, while Captain James and a few picked men should continue the explorations among the mountains. The first part of the programme was duly carried out, the chief discovery made being the existence of a number of chalybeate springs; but much disappointment and delay attended Captain James and his party in their wanderings among the then unknown tracts inhabited by the Yutas and other wild tribes bordering on the Salt Lake territory, a region about which a weird mystery clings even now.

♦ ‘Captain’ replaced with ‘Major’

Provisions and water alike ran short; the beds of streams, to which the travelers hastened to quench their thirst, turned out to be full of nothing but salt, and all efforts to find the source of the Arkansas failed. At last a broad tributary, supposed to be the Red River of the South, was discovered and followed, but it turned out to be the Canadian, which joins the Arkansas before the confluence of the latter with the Mississippi. The second half of the journey of exploration may therefore be said to have practically failed, though the way was paved by it for the colonists who, a few years later, migrated to the districts traversed.

The whole party met again at Fort Smith on the Mississippi, and made their way thence to the western coast by what had now become quite a well-known track. Disgusted with the poor results obtained, however, Major Long shortly afterward accepted the command of yet another expedition, the aim of which was to explore the vast tracts watered by the northern tributaries of the Mississippi, and which, though the property of the United States, were as yet practically unknown.

The explorers this time started from a village on the Ohio, from which they made their way across the province of the same name and part of Indiana to Lake Michigan, witnessing in their wanderings many terrible scenes of cruelty. The Potawatomies, inhabiting the high table-lands of this fertile district, are said to have tortured their captives and devoured their flesh with a savage cruelty quite equal to any thing ever witnessed elsewhere by European travelers; and it was with a feeling of intense relief that the white men turned aside, after entering the marshy districts bordering on Lake Michigan, to visit the mission station founded long ago by their fellow-countryman, Carey, the great Apostle of the Indians, who did for the neglected redskins of the present century what the good old Jesuit priests had done for their ancestors.

At this little oasis in the wilderness, fifty acres had already been cleared and six log-huts built, in one of which some fifty or sixty Indian children were being educated, their parents and chiefs encouraging their teachers in every possible way, though not themselves converts either to the civilization or to the religion of the white men. From the mission station the expedition proceeded through forests and across a rich fertile country of oak-openings and prairies, succeeded by swampy plains, till they found themselves on the southern shores of Lake Michigan, which presented the appearance of a vast ocean stretching away in an unbroken expanse as far as the eye could reach.

Huge broken bowlders of granite, piles of sand and pebbles, rolling waves and white-crested breakers, added to the impression first received, and it was difficult to believe that this troubled sea was but one of that long series of fresh water lakes from which issues the mightiest artery of North America, the St. Lawrence of many memories.

Reluctantly turning his back on the grand scene just described, Long now led his party in a south-westerly direction toward the Mississippi, passing near the site of the present Chicago, and crossing the fertile prairies of Illinois, where not a tree breaks the solemn monotony of the wilderness. As the Father of Waters was approached, however, the whole character of the country changed; hill and vale, forest and clearing, alternating with wildly picturesque rocks and mountains, between which the majestic volume of the river rolls in irresistible majesty.

Embarking on the broad basin of the now well-known river, the travelers commenced their actual explorations by struggling upward till they came to its junction with the Minnesota, or St. Peter’s River, its largest tributary north of the Missouri, and which joins it near the Falls of St. Anthony. The Minnesota had never yet been followed to its source; and, entering it, Long slowly ascended it to its head-waters, now in a south-westerly, now in a westerly direction, on the borders of the Dakota territory, where he altered his course to due north, and quickly reached the small group of lakes from which issues the mighty Red River of the North, and which may be said to be set in an ever-shifting framework of swamps and flooded streams. Here are interlocked the head-waters of the northern tributaries of the Mississippi, of the St. Lawrence, and of many a minor stream; and――strange phenomenon even in this land of physical wonders――no lofty ridge marks the watershed behind them. The heads of all the rivers are connected by canals, and canoes can shoot from one great artery to another with no change of level to mark the transition.

After a good deal of intercourse with our old friends the Sioux, the explorers launched their canoes on the Red River, and ascended it to the great Lake Winnipeg, or the Lake of the Assiniboins, connected by a number of small lakes and rivers with Hudson’s Bay, and considered the largest, though scarcely the most important of the inland seas belonging to British North America.

From Lake Winnipeg the explorers descended the river of the same name, passing through scenery wilder and grander than any yet visited by them, and going through many a peril among the constant succession of cascades and cataracts, but arriving in safety at the Lake of the Woods, that small sheet of water destined to become so famous in the controversy relating to the boundary between the United States and the Hudson’s Bay territories.

The Lake of the Woods, then surrounded by a deserted wilderness of rock and forest, was carefully examined, and from it the party made their way in a north-easterly direction to Lake Superior, the whole route consisting of little more than a series of lakes, streams, and swamps, broken by an occasional portage or bar of land, over which the canoes had to be dragged. All difficulties were, however, successfully overcome; the existence of more than one continuous water-passage from west to east was proved beyond a doubt, and little more in the way of actual discovery was left to be done by future expeditions.

In 1830, however, it was found desirable to send an expedition to the North-west, with a view to restoring peace between the Chippeways and Sioux; and the leader selected――the Schoolcraft who had been mainly instrumental in organizing the trip made a few years previously by Cass――received instructions to combine with his negotiations an exhaustive survey of the upper waters of the Mississippi. He reached Lake Superior in safety in 1830, but the waters of the rivers above it were so low at that time that nothing definite could be accomplished.

Two years later, Schoolcraft started again, and, after a successful voyage up the great river, he arrived at Cass Lake, the most northerly point reached by the predecessor who had given his name to that now famous sheet of water. Here the real difficulties of the expedition began. The Mississippi branched out into two forks, one of which――the eastern――was followed to its source in Lake Ussawa, whence an arduous tramp, or rather paddle, across country brought the party, first to the lofty ridge known as the Hauteur des Ferres, separating the tributaries of the River de Corbeau from those of the Red River, and then in sight of the western and main branch of the Father of Waters.

A number of sandy elevations had still to be scaled before the explorers once more stood upon the shores of the Mississippi, but on issuing from “a thicket into a small weedy opening,” the goal of the journey suddenly burst upon them. Itasca Lake, the primal home of the western branch of the mighty river, lay stretched before them, and the last link in the chain of discovery connected with the longest water highway in the world was found.

Itasca Lake, the Lac la Biche of the early French explorers, is a beautiful sheet of water some seven or eight miles in circumference, with an outlet about twelve feet wide, whence the Mississippi expands into a broad and copious stream. Its volume appeared strangely out of proportion to the size of its source, till the presence of invisible subterranean springs, such as those near the African Lake Tanganyika, was ascertained.

A thorough exploration of Lake Itasca was succeeded by a perilous voyage down a series of rapids forming the first stage of the Mississippi’s journey to the ocean; but, after many a narrow escape, the canoes floated into the broad stream, flanked on either side by prairies, into which the river widens above Lake Cass, whence the trip to Lake Superior lay through districts already well known.