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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ The Beauty, History, Romance and Mystery of the Canadian Lake Region _Date of first publication:_ 1910 _Author:_ William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918) _Date first posted:_ October 9, 2026 _Date last updated:_ October 9, 2026 Faded Page eBook #20261019 This eBook was produced by: Mardi Desjardins, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive. [Cover Illustration] [Illustration: [Front Endpaper]] [Illustration: Thunder Cape.] The Beauty, History Romance and Mystery OF THE Canadian Lake Region ________________ BY WILFRED CAMPBELL ________________ TORONTO THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED Copyright, 1910 The Musson Book Company, Limited Toronto. The Canadian Lake Region BY WILFRED CAMPBELL LL.D. (Aberdeen) F.R.C.S. Author of Lake Lyrics, The Dread Voyage, Poems, Collected Poems, Sagas of Vaster Britain, Poetical Tragedies, Canada, a description of the Country and People; Ian of the Orcades, a Scottish Historical Novel; A Beautiful Rebel, a Canadian Historical Novel of 1812. TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER CONTENTS. Page. Ode to Thunder Cape................................. 9 Chapter 1. Introduction............................ 13 Chapter 2. Lake Ontario and Thousand Islands....... 35 Chapter 3. Niagara and Lake Erie................... 60 Chapter 4. Lake St. Clair and the Rivers Detroit and St. Clair......................... 77 Chapter 5. Lake Huron.............................. 83 Chapter 5. Continued—Georgian Bay.................. 99 Chapter 6. Lake Michigan........................... 115 Chapter 7. Lake Superior........................... 136 Chapter 8. Lake Superior—Continued................. 151 Chapter 9. Lake Superior—Concluded................. 164 Chapter 10. Muskoka and other Lakes—Highlands of Ontario............................... 177 ILLUSTRATIONS. Thunder Cape Among the 30,000 Islands of the Georgian Bay Shooting Lachine Rapids, St. Lawrence River An Evening Sail on Toronto Bay Military College and City of Kingston Yachting—Toronto Bay Old Dufferin Street Wharf, Toronto Among the Thousand Islands, St. Lawrence River General View, Niagara Falls Horse-Shoe Falls from Goat Island—Niagara Falls Kincardine Harbor, Lake Huron On Huron’s Shore A Beach at Goderich, Lake Huron Goderich, Lake Huron Regatta Race, Oliphant, Lake Huron Lake Huron at Goderich Harbour Lake Storm, Kincardine Harbour The Beach, Lake Huron View of Colpoys Bay from Park, Wiarton On the Lake, Collingwood Docks, Collingwood Fishing on French River, Georgian Bay Wilson Channel, North Shore, Georgian Bay Owen Sound Harbour, Georgian Bay Bridal Veil Falls, near Kagawong, Manitoulin Island Island in Georgian Bay Moonlight Grand Portal Grand Palisade Ojibway Indians Canoeing Queen Victoria Rock, Muskoka Bala Falls, Muskoka Couchiching Park, Orillia Sunset on Gull Lake, Muskoka The Canadian Lake Region ODE TO THUNDER CAPE. Storm-beaten cliff, thou mighty Cape of Thunder; Rock-titan of the north, whose feet the waves beat under; Cloud-reared, mist-veiled, to all the world a wonder, Shut out, in thy wild solitude, asunder, O Thunder Cape, thou mighty Cape of Storms! Across thy rest the wild bee’s noon-day humming, And sound of martial hosts to battle drumming, Are one to thee; no date knows thine incoming; The earliest years belong to thy life’s summing; O Ancient Rock, thou agèd Cape of Storms! O, thou so old; within thy sage discerning, What sorrows, hates, what dead past loves still-burning, Couldst thou relate, thine ancient pages turning; O thou, who seemest ever new lores learning, O unforgetting, wondrous Cape of Storms! O tell me what wild past lies here enchanted? What borders thou dost guard? What regions haunted? What type of man a little era flaunted, Then passed and slept? O, tell me, thou undaunted, Thou aged as eld, O mighty Cape of Storms! O speak, if thou canst speak; what cities sleeping? What busy streets? What laughing, and what weeping? What vanished deeds and hopes, like dust, up-heaping, Hast thou long held within thy silent keeping? O wise old Cape, thou rugged Cape of Storms! These all have passed, as all that’s living passes; Our thoughts they wither as the centuries’ grasses, That bloom and rot in bleak, wild lake morasses;— But thou still loomest where Superior glasses Himself in surge and sleep, O Cape of Storms! And thou wilt stay, when we and all our dreaming Lie low in dust. The age’s last moon beaming Will shed on thy wild front its final gleaming;— For last of all that’s real, and all that’s seeming, Thou still wilt linger, mighty Cape of Storms! CHAPTER I. Introduction. Domed with the azure of heaven, Floored with a pavement of pearl, Clothed all about with a brightness Soft as the eyes of a girl; Girt with a magical girdle, Rimmed with a vapor of rest, These are the inland waters, These are the lakes of the west. Voices of slumberous music, Spirits of mist and of flame, Moonlit memories left here By gods, who long ago came, And vanishing left but an echo In silence of moon-dim caves, Where haze-wrapt the August night slumbers, Or the wild heart of October raves. Here where the jewels of nature Are set in the light of God’s smile; Far from the world’s wild throbbing, I will stay me and rest me awhile. And store in my heart old music, Melodies gathered and sung By the genies of love and of beauty When the heart of the world was young. There is no more beautiful, enchanting and sublime portion of the American continent than the lake region of Canada. Commencing at the Thousand Islands and extending to the extreme western shores of Lake Superior, is a continuous chain of superb lakes and noble waterways, unequalled anywhere in the world for their beauty of fresh-water coast-scenery and as a vast highway for inland navigation. This region comprises two wonderful groups of inland seas connected with each other by the River St. Clair, Lake St. Clair and the River Detroit, and which are known respectively as the Lower Lake region and the Upper Lake region. The first group comprises Lakes Erie and Ontario; and the second, Huron, with Georgian Bay, a vast lake in itself, Superior, and Lake Michigan. The Lower Lakes are both picturesque and beautiful, and their large expanse of fresh water has a softening effect on the climate of the country in their immediate vicinity, but the Upper Lakes are grander and more majestic in their size and sweep of water and rugged coast-line, and in their extent and depth are veritable inland, fresh-water oceans. As a region of summer and autumn charm and beauty, there is no portion of the globe more fit for the mood and dream of the poet and lover of nature than these series of recurrent opens and shores, headlands and sandy dunes, of August’s ripple in reeds and whisper on curved beaches, or October surfs pounding on lonely headlands. They are a world of dawns and eves where sky and water merge in far dim vapors, mingling blue in blue; where low-rimmed shores shimmer like gold shot through some misty fabric. This is especially true of the Upper Lake region, and also of a great portion of Erie and Ontario. To write about this exquisite region, which in many respects is the most favored in North America, means to depict one of the most interesting localities on our continent, and the greatest group of bodies of fresh water on the whole globe. It has long been one of my most cherished dreams to give to the world in some form an account of this region and these lovely and magnificent lakes, so as to celebrate, and perchance to perpetuate in literature not only their unique natural beauties, but also to chronicle somewhat of the prehistoric and historic tragedy and comedy, and the human vicissitudes which have been associated with this vicinity from the remotest human antiquity to the present day. To accomplish this one must perform the task as a labor of love, and the narrator must have in his individuality a strange admixture of the poet, the romancer, the historian and the antiquary. These great lakes, which are now famed in our history as the highway of adventure and romance, are forever associated with the names and deeds of the Ulysses, Aeneases, and Argonauts of early Canada. Here, on Ontario, Frontenac built his first fort at the then extreme outpost of white civilization. Here, by way of our northern wilds, Champlain penetrated, seeking the fabled Indies and Cathay, and discovered our vast inland seas. Here La Salle, that sublime dreamer of a new world, the first, after Sir William Alexander, to realize our vast heritage, turned his face to the west, from which he was fated, ultimately, never to return. Here the discoverer and adventurer, the religious martyr and the lonely spirit of unrest, trod these lonely wilds and dared these then uncharted waters, fellow-dreamers of our heroic age, opening up those unknown regions to generations of more practical, though not less lofty, pioneers of empire. Here, also, still remain, in the more remote upper lake region, vestiges of an ancient people beyond the memory of the aborigine, the evidence of a mysterious race who here toiled and practised the arts of an earlier civilization. Thus are these beautiful and romantic waters clothed in an ideal atmosphere of history, heroic personality and adventure, and veiled in a mystery of race antiquity in comparison with which even that of Rome and Athens may seem modern. But, hallowed and mysterious as may be the precincts of these mighty inland seas by reason of their association with the historic and prehistoric past, they hold within their picturesque and sublime coasts and wide stretch of waters a whole Iliad of adventure and fortune, of struggles and perseverance, of misfortune and death in the myriad lives of the numerous fleets which have launched from their ports and sailed their waters within the last century. Here, from Ontario to Superior, from Toledo to Thunder Cape, the story and legend of the lakes in its tragedy and comedy of life would make a volume of romance and realism which should attract and enchant the world. Aside from both these aspects, that of the historical and that of the more recent human drama enacted upon these waters, the upper lake region of Canada is permeated with an atmosphere of mystery distinctly its own, apart from, but perchance, subtly associated in some remote way with its older legendary lore, and which mantles, as it were, with a glamor and mystery, its vast crag-walled bays and lonely, sky-bounded waters. [Illustration: Among the 30,000 Islands of the Georgian Bay—Inside Channel.] This, no doubt, is largely the effect of a pristine loneliness of wooded shore and desolate wave, which in some places seem almost haunted at mid-day. There are islands in Lake Huron and Georgian Bay whose shores give one this feeling, so desolate is the wide sweep of water, sky and stretch of sandy beach and wooded interior. But there is nothing forbidding in all this, rather an atmosphere of perfect sublimity, where nature is herself in one of her best moods, as she often is to the silent observer, when the very day seems to stand still in brooding hush, as it does on a still noon or on a summer dawn in the upper lake region. To stand on a lonely but beautiful beach of an island on Lake Huron or Georgian Bay, or in any remote spot of that wonderful region, and watch God’s dawn come in, in this exquisite manner, over the edge of sky and water, with all of the silence, beauty and repose of shore and lake brooding around, is to know one of the sublime moments of life. See the night is beginning to fail, And the stars have lost half of their glow, As though all the flowers in a garden did pale When a rose is beginning to blow. And the breezes that herald the dawn, Blown round from the caverns of day, Lift the film of dark from the heaven’s bare lawn, Cool and sweet, as they come up this way. And this mighty swayed bough of the lake Rocks cool where the morning hath smiled; While the dim, misty dome of the world scarce awake Blushes rose, like the cheek of a child. If anywhere, apart from the great ocean itself, that vast, ever-moving serpent of unrest forever coiling about the rocks and crags of earth, one desires to get a true realization of vastness and desolate immensity, it is in the Canadian lake region that this can be found. Lake Huron itself, together with Georgian Bay, is, next to its sister lake, Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the known world. Its waters are hundreds of fathoms deep, and cool; and the breezes which blow over its mighty breast are those which tone the soul to high endeavor, or woo the worn or jaded spirit to nature’s languor, her magic mediciner toward her divine repose. Here we enter a picturesque and sublime region, one possessing some of the grandest coast scenery and wide sweep of heaving water-line in the whole world. Sailing north along the shores of this lake on the Canadian side, a region is entered in the summer time, of distant, immense shoreline, including cliffs and sand-dunes century-blown. Along the shore of the great peninsula, which separates Huron from the Georgian Bay, there is a wild expanse of scenery which is as desolate as the ocean. To reach this wide open of shore and water, we must follow the gulls, who dip and wheel, and skim with delicate wing the blue expanse. Out over the spaces, The sunny, blue places Of water and sky; Where day on day merges In nights that reel by; Through calms and through surges, Through stormings and lulls, O, follow, Follow, The flight of the gulls. Would you know the wild vastness Of the lakes in their fastness, Their heaven’s blue span;— Then come to this region From the dwellings of man;— Leave the life-care behind you, Which nature annuls; And follow, Follow, The flight of the gulls. Throughout this region is an Eden for the yachtsman, or for him who flees from care and turmoil to its restful shores. The Canadian climate is delightful in the seasons of summer and autumn; and, while in the more northerly localities one may experience with its subtle beauty— The short Canadian summer, Whose every lonesome breath Hold hints of autumn and winter As life holds hints of death— yet this is not so of the lake region and its environment. Here summer, at her height, reigns supreme, by open coast-line and hidden bay, in an almost tropical splendor of outdoor warmth, life and color. But though the midsummer days may be warm at noon, with the inland drowse of bee in meadow or silvern slumber of woodlands leafy shade; yet the languor is not that of the tropics, for the very air is full of a vigor and life-giving essence, and the nights are cool, dry and restful, with brooding repose for jaded nerve and care-wracked brain. Here man can, if he sanely chooses, renew his life for a season, and forget that he is a serf or hireling. Here in this wide expanse of nature’s beauty are all moods of day and night, of dawning and even: Crags that loom like spectres Half under the sun and the mist: There are beaches that gleam and glisten. Here out in the sunny open: There are miles and miles of waters That throb like a woman’s breast, With a glad harmonious motion, Like happiness caught at rest; As though a heart beat under, In love with its own glad rest. Far out here, in the open, the bold and alert yachtsman may find keen breezes to his liking. Here he can during a summer’s day tack and tack across the gleaming teeth of the wind, cleaving with swift keel the bluest and most buoyant of deeps. Here, for hundreds of miles, are to be found islands for camping and safe roadsteads for anchorage equal to any in the world. All the way from Goderich, on Lake Huron, to Sault Ste. Marie, are numerous islands, or groups of islands, still desolate, and haunted by legend and white man’s and Indian lore. When summer has given place to autumn the glory of the lakes is only enhanced. When the shore foliage has put on its autumn tints of russet, scarlet and gold, then may be seen— “Miles and miles of lake and forest, Miles and miles of sky and mist; Marsh and shoreland, where the rushes Rustle, wind and water kissed; Where the lake’s great face is driving, Driving, drifting into mist.” [Illustration: Shooting Lachine Rapids, St. Lawrence River, Canada.] But the Canadian lake region is not only benign in its vast, brooding spirit. In late autumn and winter it can be cruel and sinister in its terrible moods of storm. The long list of wrecks in its history is a grim catalogue of marine disaster. Perhaps the most appalling and yet most beautiful incident in its whole history is the story of the fate of the Griffin, the first vessel built by Europeans that ever floated on those inland waters. In her La Salle, the great explorer, made his first voyage across Erie and Huron and penetrated to the extreme west of Lake Michigan. Landing here, he sent her back in the autumn laden with costly furs; but she never was heard of again, and her loss was but the first of a long list of mysterious disappearances of vessels on the upper lakes. But there is much more to me in the personality of these lakes than those aspects which I have mentioned. There is something in nature as an environment which appeals strongly to some men more than to others, whereby a mountain or mountain range, a valley, a shore or stream, takes on through long association an almost human quality, so that the soul can feel or miss its presence, and all that it can, or does, mean in its personality or associations to a dreaming and reflecting nature. Thus have these lakes—especially the Upper Lakes—appealed to me. I regard them as not mere bodies of water, mere processes of nature in the mystery of her eternal variation, but as vast influences, powers, consolers, and sources of infinite wisdom, comfort and rest; and greater than these, of unrest and inspiration. I have ever thought that the loftiest influence in nature is not that which conduces only to reverie and indolence, which enervates and gives mere rest. In this regard Mathew Arnold’s appreciation of Wordsworth has never seemed to me right, and I have felt that there is a certain Eastern immorality in the literature or the influence which led to a mere drowsing of the senses, or gave a mere negative comfort. But these influences or forces in nature about us which suggest sublimity, which stir us to awe, or to feel an intimation of the eternal mystery, are the really great and permanent ones through which Deity is speaking to the god-like in mankind. It is just such a tremendous force or influence which I feel in these vast bodies of water which are as mystic guardians or dwellers at the gates of our community and personal existence. We, as a people, would be the better for such influences, did we but realize them at our very doors. It is good for a people to be contemplative and to link their ideals with their daily lives. It were better for Canada to realize her ideals and responsibilities as a community. But we have, sad to say, divorced our intellect from ethics; we have also shrunk into the artificial life of ephemeral modern cities, and have lost the larger, life-giving influences of nature. We have unconsciously lost the realization that we have been set by fate in an ideal place fit to be the cradle of a great people. These wide Life-yielding fields; these inland oceans; these Vast rivers moving seaward their wide floods, Majestic music,—fit home alone For the indomitable and nobly strong. Could our people, amid the present haste and greed for the artificial place and the bauble of the hour, the mere craze for wealth and power, but— Go forth alone and view the earth and sky And those eternal waters, moving, vast, In endless duty; ever rendering pure These mild or angry airs; the gladdening sun, Reviving, changing, weaving life from death, These elemental uses nature puts Her patient hours to. Then would they know A larger vista, glean a greater truth Than man has put into his partial creeds Of blinded feud and custom. Then would they know That nature’s laws are greater and more sure, More calm, more patient, wise and tolerant Than these poor futile efforts of our dream When we can have for the mere effort such wonderful and tonic experiences of the open, it is marvelous that we as a people, with so much wide area at the nation’s disposal, should herd in stifling purlieus of half-civilized American cities, where our humanity is stunted and degenerated to the inhuman demands of a modern commercial and money-hungered helotism. It was the eastern weakness to sink into the mere dream of the eternal contemplation of the mystic. But the western world has become over-active and thoughtless, too much bent on a base achievement of the moment and hour, too contemptuous of the past, and those deeper laws which really govern our final destiny. Would that many of our men of action and of what are falsely called the practicalities of life, could spend a week or a month every summer somewhere on the shores of these great lakes, away from the jar and jangle, the vulgar jostle of the crowded money-marts, where they might have leisure to realize their true natures and somewhat of God’s purpose in bringing them into this existence. I know hundreds of such spots— Within whose dreamy borders naught taketh shape— Of weird ambition, sorrow at the heart’s core; But holdeth only love of cape for cape, Of murmurous shore for shore. Their every mood, of spring or early or late summer, autumn, or winter, suggests the sublimity of human life and nature. There is a vigor and a tonic for character in their vicinity, which rouses the whole spirit of man to determine to achieve what is best in him. These four great lakes—Ontario, Erie, Huron and Superior—form the wave-walls of two sides of the important triangular Province of Ontario, that garden of the middle north, which our first Governor, Simcoe, chose as the suitable seat of his ideal colony, which was, as he truly prophesied, destined to perpetuate British good government and British ideals on this side of the Atlantic. But these beautiful fresh-water seas are not mere boundaries in an imaginary sense. They are, as the wise Governor foresaw, an effectual barrier, shutting Ontario off from the communities to the south and west, so that the Canadian soil, the Canadian seasons, and the Canadian atmosphere, have been allowed to produce a peculiar stock of a British American people, which is already taking its place as a national factor among the ethical forces and race elements of the world. Canada owes much, more than she can ever repay, to her British heredity and British institutions, which have kept her people sanely gradual in the perilous paths of progress. She owes much to our immediate forefathers, who controlled and inspired her pioneer infancy. She owes much to that once-maligned conservatism of character, which perchance looked over-much askance at any suggestion of change or iconoclasm. But she also owes much to the existence of her superb waterways and inland seas, those limpid girdles of her far-reaching coast-line. It is because of these lakes that we have so healthy, so bracing and delightful a climate. Were there no lakes in this part of America, our climate would be little better than that of Labrador; and probably the sudden meeting of heat and cold would render this whole region liable to the fierce cyclones of the Western and Southwestern States. Therefore we have additional reasons to appreciate these great shining walls of water which surround our borders with their gleaming spaces, cooling and warming, purifying, beautifying, and rendering accessible the most of our territory, in a continual marine roadway to our ocean gateways facing the rude Atlantic. Since prehistoric times, in our own early days, this region has witnessed the tragedy and comedy, joy and sorrow, years of struggle with the wilderness, the building of stockades, fighting with redmen, clearing of forest, and planting of homes. But we still stand in awe of those ancient peoples who once dwelt here; and wonder “What wild past lies here enchanted? . . . . . what regions haunted? What type of man a little era flaunted Then passed and slept?” In later modern days, those of the seemingly commonplace of the nineteenth century, these waters have witnessed the ever recurring drama of humanity. On their bosoms have floated all sorts and conditions of craft, from the early naval fleets of Commodore Yeo, to the iron wheat-tank and gasoline launch of the twentieth century. It is a fair picture always, from the old-time sailing vessel to the modern steamer,—there is an unfailing charm in the personality of the ships that go down into the great deep. “A glimmer of bird-like boats that loom from the far horizon, That scud and tack and dip, under the gray and blue.” “A steamer that rises, a smoke, then after a tall, dark funnel, That moves like a shadow across your water and sky’s gray edge.” How familiar these pictures are to the dweller on the shores of our vast lakes. From Ontario to Superior, from Kingston to Thunder Cape, the story and legend of the lakes in its comedy and tragedy would fill a volume of romance and realism that would interest and charm the world. Some of this history, mystery, tragedy and romance will be the burden of the series of chapters which are to follow this general introduction. If these sketches do no more than interest the reader in our vast inland seas, I will at least feel that my task has not been in vain. If some kindred spirit is led to appreciate the days warm at noon with the inland drowse of bee, or to realize the sublimity in the mighty loneliness of a stormy sunset on Georgian Bay or Lake Huron, where “Great brown, bare rocks, wet, purple-dyed By sunset’s beams, hedge in this realm Of sky, and wide Bleak sweep of tide, Gray, tossed, scarce plowed by keel or helm.” [Illustration: An Evening Sail on Toronto Bay.] CHAPTER II. Lake Ontario and the Thousand Islands. With wheeling and reeling, With skimming and stealing, We wing with the wind, Out over the heaving Of gray waters, leaving The lands far behind, And dipping ships’ hulls. O follow, Follow, The flight of the gulls. Up over the thunder Of reefs that lie under, And dead sailors’ graves; Like snowflakes in summer, Like blossoms in winter, We float on the waves, And the shore-tide that pulls. O, follow, Follow, The flight of the gulls. If we follow this word-picture we will come to the Lower Lake region, or that lovely portion of it which comprises Lake Ontario and the precincts, historic and picturesque, of the Thousand Islands. Ontario, if Huron, Michigan and Superior were not in existence, would easily be regarded as the most beautiful, and the largest, body of fresh water in the world. Its whole coast-line and broad sweep of limpid blue is a realm of natural charm, historic reminiscence, romance, and modern social activity. It is not, like Huron and Superior, rugged in coast-line and vast in sweep of wave; nor is it so desolate as Michigan. But it has a beauty and attraction all its own, and from the fairy-like region of the Thousand Islands to the entrance to the River Niagara at Lewiston, presents an ever-varying panorama of coast-line, cape and bay, islands and delightful opens. It is throughout its whole length of one hundred and eighty miles, navigable for vessels of the largest size, being, in some places, over six hundred feet in depth; so that all the navies of the world could float within its confines; and many splendid fleets of merchant vessels of all sorts pass up and down its vast highway from the ocean to the distant interior. To this beautiful body of water Champlain gave the name of Lac St. Louis, when he first with his Huron fleet of canoes, entered its smiling waters in search of the southern country of the Iroquois. The lake of St. Louis it long remained—long after the great discoverer had departed from this earthly scene. One can imagine the surprise of the early voyageur, as he passed, with his dusky pilots, along its winding shores—and surveyed for the first time its great opens—or camped in secluded nooks of its narrow creeks, and hidden bays, where the deep, dark forest shaded its banks and the shy deer stole down to drink of its limpid waters. Before the traveller reaches the lake on the upward journey, he passes Cornwall, Prescott and Brockville, three old Upper Canadian towns noted in our history and redolent with memories of the early Loyalist days, when the hardy pioneer planted and sustained the British flag on the northerly banks of the St. Lawrence and the lakes. These old places are also sacred to the memory of many of the disbanded military folk, who settled in the townships all along the river and lake, from Cornwall to Hamilton. Canadians as a class, who either travel abroad to find beauty of nature and attractions of civilization, or else stay in one place all their lives, do not appreciate as they should, many of their own really beautiful towns and cities, which for years past have been developing in this country. We have, on the shores of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, some lovely and quite historic cities and towns. Toronto and Hamilton are well known; the one for its large population, great prominence as a commercial centre, as the provincial capital, and as a seat of learning; and the other as a picturesque city of rapid growth and commercial activity. But we are liable to forget, or to be ignorant of the fact, that we have a city in Canada, Kingston, the oldest capital of the Province, which in many respects is one of the most beautiful cities on this continent. It has an individuality of its own; and because of its many splendid stone buildings, and its fine university, is without doubt the Aberdeen of Canada. [Illustration: Military College and City of Kingston.] Situated as it is, on the lake shore, in a commanding site, with its historic military associations and its collegiate community, it is a place where the traveller or Canadian who desires to study the Canada of to-day and the Canada of the past, will realize that we are no mere raw, young community; but a great offshoot of the British peoples, carrying on their hereditary traditions, and with no mean past of our own. It is in such a dignified old city, with its massive stately buildings and elm-shaded streets and squares, with their old-world suggestion of historic reminiscence, rather than in our more bustling and changing lake and inland towns, that one acquires a true sense of the beauty and charm of Lake Ontario, its picturesque shores and its historic past. The place was originally known by the name of Cataraqui, the Indian appellation, also the name of the river which here flows into Ontario. Here the French, who used this place as a treaty-ground between them and the Indians, erected a fort afterwards named after the great Governor Frontenac. The first English settlement was made about the year 1783, when the United Empire Loyalists arrived. Here, Simcoe, in July, 1792, held in the Protestant church the first council meeting of the Government of Upper Canada. In 1817 the town contained 2,250 houses, and the following quotation from a description of the old town published in that year will be interesting: “Kingston is in lat. 44° 12′ north and long. 75° 41′ west, at the north-east point of Lake Ontario, and the head of the St. Lawrence, on its north-eastern shore, opposite Wolfe Island. It occupies the site of old Fort Frontenac, the ruins of which are still to be seen, as are also the remains of a breastwork thrown up by the English under Colonel Bradstreet. The harbour is on the east side of the town and is formed by a bay stretching up northerly to the front of the town, and, meeting the waters of a river (the Cataraqui) on which, a few miles above, the Kingston Mills are erected. The west shore of the bay is bold and suitable for wharfs, of which there are already as many as ten, where vessels of any burthen may lie in safety and load and unload with convenience and ease. East of the bay the land projects southwards a considerable distance, to a point called Point Frederick, or Navy Point, beyond which is Haldimand Cove, a deep basin of water, sheltered by this point on the west, and Point Henry on the east, and guarded against south winds by Wolfe Island in front. In this cove the King’s shipping lie, and on its western margin are the royal dockyard, wharf, stores, etc.” In the month of November, 1812, the American Naval Commander Chauncey, with his squadron, which was superior to that of the British, chased the British man-of-war, the Royal George, from the Ducks by the Upper Gap or channel into Kingston Harbour—and after returning the fire of the batteries—set sail for Sackett’s Harbour. In 1851 the following vessels were owned or registered in Kingston: Sailing vessels, Rachael, Thames, Shannon, Briton, Manchester, W. Black, Quebec, Lilia, Pearl, Sophia, Liverpool, Dundee, Bristol, Glasgow, Grampus, Woodburn, and twenty-three others. The steamers were: The Maple Leaf, Ireland, England, May Flower, Reindeer, Hope, Cataraqui, Brittania, Juno, and Ottawa. This old city, on a summer afternoon, or in early autumn, with its shaded walks and a suggestion of other days and more conservative associations, is a place where the jaded spirit may enter upon a calmer, quieter mood of existence. The far stretch of coast-line jutting out in points and headlands and receding in marshy bays; the old-time fort and martello towers; the old Upper Canadian manor house; the maritime atmosphere of shipping and warehouses redolent of a century of commerce, all have a charm not found in the more modern, more crude and more commonplace inland localities of the Province. Other old towns on the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, of a similar reminiscent and old-world atmosphere, are Brockville, Cornwall, Prescott, already mentioned, and Belleville. These old places are sacred to the memory of the disbanded military folk and the United Empire Loyalists. Brockville, founded largely by the Jones, Buell and Sherwood families, is a place rich in the annals of our people. Here a group of United Empire Loyalists cleared the forest and settled the country and built up the old town, which received its name in 1812 in honour of the great military hero of Upper Canada who laid down his life for King and country on Queenston Heights. Here settled and were reared some of Upper Canada’s most distinguished men—and to-day, the city stands on the banks of the St. Lawrence, a place of happy streets and picturesque houses, along the river shore. Here one has more of the river than the lake. But the long street parallel with the shore, with its old-time houses and quaint churches, is a bit of old Upper Canada; and was at one time one of the stopping places on the way up to the great lakes. Prescott, founded by the Jessops, is another delightful pioneer shore town, and famous as the one time headquarters of a great military settlement, which was established by its founders. Here came and settled Major Edward Jessop, Commander of Jessop’s corps of Royal Rangers. He was the friend of Sir John Johnston, and left half a million acres of land in the State of New York as the sacrifice of his loyalty to his King. He and his son, Captain Edward Jessop, of the King’s Rangers, settled the township of Edwardsburgh with their soldiers, and founded the fine old town of Prescott. Its principle thoroughfare, Dibble Street, is named after Major Jessop’s wife and first cousin, Abigail Dibble, of the old U.E. Loyalist Connecticut family of that name. Her brother, George Dibble, a wealthy Connecticut land owner, was, with Major Jessop and two other gentlemen, offered a whole township on the Ottawa River by the Canadian Government; but for some reason they failed to take it up. These old families of long lineage, who gave up so much for King and flag, have now long passed from history; but their deeds and their memories remain, and their spirit should inspire their descendants. Away above Kingston, in the beautiful Bay of Quinte, stands Belleville, originally Moira, named after the wife of Francis Gore, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. This place is to-day one of the loveliest residential towns in the Province, and for over a century has been associated with the foundation, pioneer struggle, and later development of the country. Here, as at the other places mentioned, was formed a nucleus of pioneer life; and its graveyards contain the ashes of many whose descendants have played a large part in the life of Canada. Belleville was settled by U.E. Loyalists and later by people direct from Britain, among them retired military officers. It is the residence and home of Sir McKenzie Bowell, late Premier of Canada; and Mrs. Moodie, the writer, who was Miss Strickland, lived here. Among many families prominent in our history are those of Wallbridge, Murney, Campbell, Ridley, Lister, Baldwin, Moodie, Bell and Wilkinson. St. Thomas’ Anglican Church, originally built by the Reverend Thomas Campbell, the first rector, is a beautiful building, of gothic structure, like an old-time English church. Even in the early days, Belleville, with its vicinity, was noted for its beautiful scenery. It was considered by travellers to have more the appearance of an old-world landscape than that of a rude settlement. During the century that has intervened it has added to this beauty. The bay, an arm of Ontario, is one of the loveliest sheets of water in Canada, and winds in from the lake to a distance of eighty miles. The old town has many fine churches and residences, and wears the air, even yet, of a place which was founded and settled by a people who were aristocrats. Farther up the lake, Port Hope and Cobourg, have each, in their way, a similar collection of associations; so that the whole northern shore of Ontario is girdled by a series of historic and cultured communities, still redolent of the fine ideal and old-world traditions which have made Upper Canada possible as a British community. As Toronto is approached, in the neighborhood of Whitby, Pickering and Scarborough, the scenery becomes bolder, the shore presenting a series of high and precipitous banks of varied outline, rising in some places to an elevation of three hundred or four hundred feet from the surface of the lake. This gradually falls away again, until the City of Toronto, originally “Trees in Water,” is reached. [Illustration: Yachting—Toronto Bay.] Toronto is situated on Lake Ontario, with a capacious and well-sheltered bay in front of it. The following description of the harbour and place by Bouchette, the original surveyor, may be interesting after a century of change: “The harbour of York is nearly circular and formed by a very narrow peninsula, stretching from the western extremity of the township of Scarborough, in an oblique direction for about six miles, and terminating in a curved point nearly opposite the garrison, thus enclosing a beautiful basin about a mile and a half in diameter, capable of containing a great number of vessels, and at the entrance of which ships may lie with safety during the winter. The formation of the peninsula itself is extraordinary, being a narrow slip of land, in several places not more than sixty yards in breadth, but widening towards its extremity to nearly a mile; it is principally a bank of land slightly overgrown with grass; the wildest part is very curiously intersected by many large ponds that are the continual resort of great quantities of wild-fowl; a few trees scattered upon it greatly increase the singularity of its appearance; it lies so low that the wide expanse of Lake Ontario is seen over it. The termination of the peninsula is called Gibraltar Point, where a blockhouse has been erected. A lighthouse at the western extremity of the beach has rendered the access to the harbour safely practicable by night. The eastern part of the harbour is bounded by an extensive marsh, through part of which the River Don runs before it discharges itself into the basin. No place in either Province has made so rapid a progress as York. “In the year 1793, the spot on which it stands presented only one solitary Indian wigwam; in the ensuing spring the ground for the future metropolis of Upper Canada was fixed upon, and the buildings commenced.” The first survey of York Harbour was made in 1793. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, who then lived at Navy Hall, Niagara, had resolved on laying the foundation of his provincial Capital at Toronto, on the wild wooded shores of this beautiful basin as it then appeared. Trackless forests covered its lovely shores, where the forest giants leaned over and mirrored their stately forms in the placid water. The aborigines alone dwelt beneath their shades on its dreamy beaches. These Indians were a branch of the tribe of Missasaugas, who shared the locality with a great variety of wild-fowl that haunted the marshes. But these now have long gone with the pristine solitude, which is only of the remote and untenanted wilds. [Illustration: Old Dufferin Street Wharf, Toronto.] “O, sunsets old, long wandered down! O, ancient Indian shore and town! Time’s strange, dark roll hath wrapt around Thy dreamless sleep.” All of these places were, in their day and time, lake ports; and it will interest the reader to remember some of the craft which formerly sailed or steamed these waters and made these quaint old lake-side towns their points of arrival and departure. In this connection it is interesting to note the vicissitudes of race, fate or fortune, with which Lake Ontario has been associated. Across the lake from Kingston, in its south-east corner, is the city or town of Oswego in the State of New York, which has from the beginning, with Sackett’s Harbour, been associated with the naval and military history of the American side of the lake. At a period when Canada belonged to France, and what is now the United States was British territory, there was great rivalry between the two races regarding the fur trade. The French, penetrating west by way of the great lakes, desired a fort on Lake Ontario more remote than Frontenac, now Kingston; so they established a small fort or outpost where Toronto now stands. The English, fearing that this might be a menace to their prospects, established a fort or station on the south-eastern shore of the lake at what is now called Oswego. In 1813 the racial map was reversed, and an American naval and military expedition sailed from Sackett’s Harbor and Oswego and attacked and captured York, then a British Capital. This brings us to the naval history of this lake, and the maritime struggle for supremacy when Sir James Yeo was the British Admiral and Kingston a naval station, and Commodore Chauncey the American commander. At the beginning of the war of 1812, Ontario was the only lake on which floated a British vessel of war. The fleet consisted of the Royal George, three hundred and fifty tons and twenty guns; a brig of fourteen guns; and a few other small vessels. The American naval force increased from one vessel to a fine fleet, comprising the “Madison,” a large ship, and six fine schooners, finally increased to fourteen vessels in all. The struggle between Yeo and Chauncey for supremacy of the lake was a fight between naval men; and its history is an interesting account of battles and captures of prizes, on both sides. The novelist and historian can re-create in imagination the boom of cannon and the huzzas of tars and marines, over the otherwise peaceful waters of this then lonely lake. There are some pictures still extant of those old, wooden-walled greyhounds, which suggest the romance of fight, conquest and adventure; and their quaint names: the “Royal George,” “The Duke of Gloucester,” “The Scourge,” and “The Sylph,” were suggestive of the times. Even earlier than this period the romances of Fenimore Cooper throw a glamor over the eastern precincts of these fascinating waters. One spring morning late in April, 1813, the American fleet, under Chauncey, and having on board a detachment of American troops, rounded Gibraltar Point, surprised the Capital, which was in a poor state of fortification, and captured the town. After holding the place for several days and burning the Parliament Buildings with the public journals and other records, in the Provincial Library, they sailed away. It was a humiliating time for the citizens of York, though those there made a good stand, and the Americans lost heavily before they got possession of the place. This was one of the few naval forays, of that exciting period. But now that the Americans are once more gradually establishing vessels on the Upper Lakes, those historic incidents recur, as suggestive hints of our present unpreparedness, to the thoughtful mind. In spite of the eternal jibe at the bogey of militarism, it is a poor community that is not prepared to defend itself from inside or outside foes. Someone wisely said; I think it was one of our Governors: “the Canadian people are too safe, protected as they are, to realize the danger of the future.” No one has higher ideas of international amity than the writer of these sketches; and no one appreciates more than he does, the qualities of our neighbors to the south. But, for the same reason that the State of Michigan has a naval school, should the Province of Ontario have one. The presence of a police force in a community does not interfere with mutual goodwill and trust between citizen and citizen. But all admit its necessity for the public weal. So, between nations, armies and navies for defence, ensure national protection at those moments when one of the national entities is for some very human reason not quite at its highest level. It may be an appeal to the lower elements of a dominant party; it may be a temporary myopia in the vision, or a blood to the head in an otherwise cool and clear-sighted people, but its result may be a sudden attack on an outside inoffending community with disastrous results to the latter if she be not prepared to prevent or repel an attack. The present writer would give much to see all of our beautiful lakes clear of all forts and ships of war. It would be a great thing for both peoples. But, so would we like to do away with prisons and police cells in our towns and cities, and batoned officers guarding street corners. But, meanwhile, in this very imperfect state of society, as between man and man, and nation and nation, the best way to prevent trouble is to be prepared. If we could only persuade our American friends to remove their ships and promise to refrain from building any ourselves, it would be a step in advance in the condition of the world’s history. But such an understanding must be mutual in spirit and action, or it will be of no avail. Long may it be ere the smoke of cruel war darkens, and the roar of devastating cannon reverberates, along the beautiful water-walls of this our Western Britain. The fleets of traffic and commerce appeared even earlier on the waters of the lakes. The trading vessels and batteaux were, at an early date, employed in carrying on the fur trade, and in conveying the merchandise needed for the infant colony along the Upper Canadian shores of Ontario. Richard Cartwright at Kingston, and Robert Hamilton at Niagara, were prominent among a group of early merchants and traders whose vessels plied between Prescott and Niagara and the intervening points. [Illustration: Among the Thousand Islands—St. Lawrence River, Canada.] Steam vessels first appeared in 1816; and the earliest steamers built on the lake were the “Ontario,” at Sackett’s Harbor, and the “Frontenac,” at Kingston, both in 1816. The next year the “Charlotte” was built at Kingston, and in 1818 the “Sophia” was built at Sackett’s Harbor. Since then the fleets of lake traffic have greatly increased in numbers on both sides of the lake, and the advent of the Ericsson propellers in 1841, with their great carrying trade between Oswego and Chicago, initiated what has since become the vast commerce of this inland water highway. Though Lake Ontario as a whole presents a fine bold sweep of smiling or gloomy waters under the skies of all seasons, yet it is at the lower end of the lake that the greatest natural beauty abounds, and where the most historical and romantic interest centres. In the region of the Thousand Islands below Kingston, Fenimore Cooper, the American Walter Scott, laid the scene of one of his most delightful romances, “The Pathfinder.” The main incidents of the tale are located in what is now called the Admiralty group of islands above the town of Gananoque. It dealt with a period teeming in tragic and thrilling action and incident, that of the war which ended in the conquest of Quebec; and when England held Oswego, and the French Fort Frontenac. There is an atmosphere of poetry in all that clusters about this vast group of islands, with the blue, limpid river winding in and out between and widening into the open sweep of glorious lake beyond. Islands of all sizes and shapes are scattered in profusion through these waters, some covered with vegetation, others bare and rugged rocks, some many acres in extent, others measuring only a few feet, some showing a bare, bold head scarcely above the water, while a short distance off a large island or rock, crowned with a considerable growth of pine and cedar, will rise abruptly out of the water to a height of a hundred feet, or even more. These islands and islets are for the most part composed of granite or sandstone, and the whole region is broken and rugged as though the result of a violent earthquake in the early days of the world. Here, at sunrise or sunset, the solitary sportsman or the lover of nature may drink in beauties of wooded island, jutting crag, sanded or pebble-strewn shore, or lonely headlands, where still lingers an odor of romance in the memory of departed savage races, battles by shore or wave, or other stirring incidents of early pioneer life; each spot being reminiscent of centuried memories. Near here is Gananoque, “the place of the deer,” where many of Sir John Johnson’s Royal New York Regiment settled. Gananoque is located at the mouth of the Gananoque River, and is noted for its fine water power. It was founded in 1798 by Colonel Joel Stone, and has grown during a century into a flourishing town. All along the shores are places sacred to the historic and prehistoric past. We are the dream which they did dream; but we, If we are great as they were, likewise know That man is ever onward, outward bound To some far port of his own soul’s desire; Knowing the present ever incomplete, In love’s reflection of the heart’s high goal. When one stands by the shores of this vast river-lake and gazes on its limpid breast, blue and sparkling at noon-day or luminiscent under the moon; imagination goes back to distant days and olden scenes, before the advent of railways, and steamships, and telegraphs, until once more rise into view the stately masts and prows, beating up the breezy blue opens of the vast receding lake. Or once more is heard the measured chant of the batteaux men, and the musical cadence of their laboring oars as they slowly creep along the shores, under overhanging woodlands or jutting headlands, into the dim distance beyond. Or one muses, in a vague melancholy, O’er the grave or battle-ground Where each warrior sleeps. Or there rises once more in the mind’s eye the adventurous explorer, Frontenac; the stern soldier, Brock, the hero, laying down his life that a young nation might be born; Yeo, the bluff Admiral, breasting the waves in his vigilant fleet; the pioneer; the hunter; the soldier of the line, weary of worldwide wars, coming here to end his days on these peaceful and fruitful shores; the preacher of the great old truths, lifting up his voice anew in a young land;—all that mystic undercurrent of the wave of advance of a new people and a future age, on the pulsing waters and benign rim of this beautiful Canadian lake. And here let us pause and bid farewell to this glorious inland fresh water sea, renewer and restorer of sweet seasons to our young Province; and with all those dreams and memories of the past in our heart, let us rest and renew us for a space. Here where the jewels of nature Are set in the light of God’s smile, Far from the world’s wild throbbing I will stay me and rest me awhile; And store in my heart old memories, Melodies gathered and sung, By the genies of love and of beauty, When the heart of the world was young. CHAPTER III. Niagara and Lake Erie. A universe of waters thundering down Across the awful verges of the world, fails to describe Niagara; and the phrase “the garden of Canada” likewise falls short of a true description of the region we now enter in our westward journey through the magical Lake Region. The Niagara Peninsula and River or “Straight,” as it has been called by French and English explorers, are both so celebrated by a host of writers and artists throughout the world, that it would almost seem that nothing new could be said about them. [Illustration: General View Niagara Falls.] The river is not only famous for its great fall, one of the wonders of the world; but is also remarkable in our early and later annals. Here at Queenston Heights, Sir Isaac Brock, one of the greatest heroes and soldiers of the Empire, died while leading his men in defence of the country. In the history of the world no stream has more hallowed associations than has Niagara for the Canadian. But this river is also noted for its perennial interest to the geologist. Here the student of nature sees not only a stupendous natural phenomenon, but also the slow processes of a change which has been going on for ages. To the artist the river and fall are an eternal beauty and marvel. The Duke of Argyll, when Governor of Canada, wrote the following fine sonnet describing the great falls: “Niagara.” “A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke! How dread and beautiful the floods, when crowned By moonbeams on their rushing ridge, they bound Into the darkness and the veiling spray; Or jewel-hued and rainbow-dyed, when day Lights the pale torture of the gulf profound! So poured the avenging streams upon the world When swung the ark upon the deluge wave, And o’er each precipice in grandeur hurled, The endless torrents gave mankind a grave. God’s voice is mighty, on the water loud, Here, as of old, in thunder, glory, cloud!” An old account of the falls, given by a boundary survey, is as follows: About twenty-one miles from Lake Erie and at the foot of the remains of Iris Island the Niagara plunges into a vast chasm of the rock, which is over one hundred and fifty-six feet deep, and nine hundred and sixty yards broad, along the chord, and prolonged for seven miles east, north-east, almost at right angles with the former course of the river. This descent is divided into three parts, by Iris Island and the island on its right, and which are called the Horse-shoe, the Montmorenci, and the American fall. [Illustration: Horse-Shoe Falls, from Goat Island—Niagara Falls.] The whole line of the break is about three thousand six hundred feet in length, of which one-half comprises the Horse-shoe, and one-quarter each to the American and the Montmorenci or Ribbon fall. The Horse-shoe fall is on the Canadian side. This fall presents an unbroken curtain of emerald, edged with white or brown. The stream beneath the pitch is smooth, but white with intestine commotion. A little way down it forms into billows, and maintains a great velocity through the whole chasm to Queenston. The cataract has been for ages undergoing changes, as the water has step by step eaten away the rock, over which it flows. When the process began we know not. But judging from the hard nature of the rock between the present cataract and Lake Erie, some thousands of years must elapse ere it will reach that lake. There is in the archives at Ottawa a beautiful small picture of the falls, painted by Sir James Erskine over a century ago. There are also fine pictures of Niagara by old artists, such as Bennett and Vanderlyn. But the falls themselves will ever baffle the artist and poet alike in any attempt to picture or describe their sublime characteristics. Since the days of Father Hennepin, whose drawing is dated 1697, artists and writers have vied with each other in attempts to reproduce, in picture and words, the splendid cataract. But there is another phase of history and tradition which should not be overlooked. It is the part this great natural wonder played in the life and imagination of the early races on this continent. In a later chapter I will refer to the importance of prehistoric Canada in connection with the Upper Lake region. But I would like just to touch upon the subject in connection with Niagara. All over the continent there are special places where vestiges yet remain of the ancient peoples who dwelt here. It is quite possible, and more than probable, that these falls were a great seat of worship and religion. Certainly, there is no place in the world where, when surrounded by the loveliness of nature—ere the contaminating reek of smokestack and factoried city had banished Pan, and the giants and the high imagination—Deity, from the early days of the earth, might be so truly realized and felt, as on the borders of this vast cataract, with its eternal voice of awful thunders. There is a colored print of an old painting of Niagara, in which a splendid view of the falls is given; but in the foreground there is, on a ledge, depicted an Indian snake-charmer charming a huge rattlesnake, which seems to be under his control. I cannot say why the artist added this touch, unless at the time such a thing was a fact. But we know that the serpent is closely associated with early religion, and it is quite possible that ancient necromancers would frequent this place as especially associated with the unknown and occult. One would suppose that if ever the Delphic Oracles had their counterpart in America, their seat of prophecy would certainly be in the precincts of Niagara. This is not merely a matter of superstition and pagan idolatry. There is a form of nature-worship in all religions; and nature was not made as the cradle of a god-like race for nothing. It may not be realized, in this over-material age, but natural environment has a greater influence on humanity for good or evil than the modern world may, in its over-practical stupor, understand. No matter how great and important a truth may be; to truly appreciate it, one must be prepared for its reception; and men have of late seemed to forget this necessary fact. To be truly religious one must be in close contact with the sublime in the universe, and this influence and conception of nature saturating man for generations, has had a great deal to do with man’s higher conceptions of God and man’s relation to Him in the Universe. There is more in the old imagination and sympathy with the unseen about us, than we may appreciate. In this connection, it might be suggested that it would have been much more beneficial for the race if the region of Niagara in the precincts of the falls had been set apart as a great common international park and kept more in its original sublimity of nature, than to have turned it into a vulgar show-place, or a vast mill race. Such a spot, in an ideal condition of society, where the religious influences would be regarded as more important than those of commerce, would have a great power over the souls of men to lead them to the contemplation of the Infinite. We may not realize that earth owes its greatest ethics, its poetry and truest art and philosophy to such sublime influences. Lake Erie will ever be associated with the sad and mysterious fate of the Griffin, the first vessel built and launched by white men on those inland waters. The story of this vessel and of the whole expedition is one of the most interesting romances, and one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the lakes. The Griffin was the pioneer of Upper Lake shipping, and was the first of the many vessels which have since disappeared in those vast waters. Lake Erie is associated with a long list of vessels, sail and steam, in the maritime history of the last century. The naval struggle between Canada and the United States in the war of 1812 was also connected with this lake. Commander Barclay was the Canadian Admiral, and Perry of Rhode Island the American Admiral, who fought each other in the historical battle of Lake Erie. This struggle was one between veteran sailors trained in the ocean navies of Britain and America, and in both cases it was a matter of bringing ship-wrights, smiths, caulkers, riggers, sailmakers, and other professional sea-toilers up into these inland waters, and here, out of the forests of the shores, building and equipping the rival fleets, which have made the history of the lake memorable in our annals and in those of the neighboring Republic. The American fleet proved victorious on that occasion. But it was a case of more vessels and larger guns. Commodore Barclay states in his report of the battle, that he labored under many disadvantages, his fleet was lacking in the requisite number of proper seamen. “The few British seamen I had,” he says, “behaved with their usual intrepidity.” Also he says, “Manned as the squadron was, with not more than fifty British seamen, the rest a mixed crew of Canadians and soldiers who were totally unacquainted with such service, rendered the loss of officers more sensibly felt.” The Americans had nine vessels in the action, the “Scorpion,” “Ariel,” “Lawrence,” “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” “Somers,” “Porcupine,” “Tigress,” “The Trippe.” The British fleet was composed of the “Little Belt,” “Detroit,” “Hunter,” “Queen Charlotte,” “Lady Prevost,” and the “Chippewa,” only six vessels, and with smaller guns. This was one of the noted episodes of the war; but the British, as on Lake Ontario, were outclassed by the Americans in the number, size and equipment of their fleet. Turning from the warlike to the peaceful fleets of Lake Erie, the history of shipping on this lake is well worth studying. There is a poetry of charm in all craft afloat for certain minds; and I claim to be always of that temperament. Since my earliest years a ship has always had for me peculiar beauty. It is not alone its association with wide wastes, and long voyages, and wreck and storm and desolate coasts which appeals to one; though the thought of old ocean is ever “A vision of league-long breakers landward hurled, Of olden ships far-beating out to sea; Of splendid shining wastes of heaving green Far-stretching round the world.” And to me the lakes have a similar charm of association; as though they also like the ocean, had their mysterious place in the realm of adventure and tragedy and romance of the deep. But there is also a personality about a ship itself, especially a sailing craft, which must ever appeal to the lover of the beautiful. These feelings and their origin in our nature are difficult to explain. But they are deeply planted in some peoples; and the British heredity is a seafaring one, with a centuried experience, which has got into our blood, and one of the loveliest pictures in the world is a ship under full sail on the heaving bosom of the ocean or blue inland lake. Steam was introduced at an early date on Lake Erie; and the famous Walk-in-the-Water, named after the chief of the Wyandotte Indians, was the first vessel of this kind upon its waters. She was built at Black Rock in 1818, and was a quaint and curious combination of a sailing and steam vessel. She was operated by a powerful engine built on Fulton’s plan. In going from Black Rock past the rapids, she was propelled by what was called a “horned breeze,” sixteen yoke of oxen. When she was built there were then only about thirty sailing vessels on the Upper Lakes. She arrived in Detroit on the 27th of August and created a great sensation. What a great contrast there is between the present busy hum of commerce which now wakens these shores and opens with its myriad reeking funnels and iron hulls and the silent waters and virgin woods and forests which met the first adventurous explorers in the ill-fated Griffin. A noted traveller has given the following description of a journey along the Canadian shore of Lake Erie: “For much of the way it was not easy to point out the actual margin of the lake. There was a curious intermingling of forest, grassy savannahs and clear water. On narrow ridges of land were growing most august plane (basswood) trees in prolonged rows, with a magnificent profusion of leafage. Other trees in drier situations, such as the oak, chestnut, black walnut, were remarkably fine; and trees such as the Huron and other northerly districts cannot boast of. After a few miles of this low umbrageous country, a world of leaves and dews and summer airs, rises a line of earthy cliffs from thirty to one hundred and fifty feet high, which continues for many leagues, along the greater part of the northern or Canadian shore of the lake. “From the north end of these cliffs the eye sweeps over a vast outlook of many miles of low-lands and marsh—an almost impassable jungle, full of ponds, reeds, alders, vines, willows, in the hollows; and of hard woods on the higher levels; all of a remarkable luxuriance, and teeming with animal life—in the earlier days of the 19th century, from the bear, panther and eagle to the smallest insect; the whole region being an immense morass, stretching for miles and miles to the Detroit River.” Turning the eye in the Southern direction, the wide expanse of Erie is met, with the opposite coast of Ohio gray in the distance, and the intermediate waters ornamented with woody isles. Sailing down Erie from the Detroit, The Sisters, St. George, the Bass Island and luxuriant, low-lying Pelee, the island vineyard of Canada, are all passed, and melt in turn like mirages into the misty distance; if the weather is fine the lake is like a sheet of silver, or a smoke mist of a summer morning. But if it is in the stormy season, this placid calm is soon changed, in the sudden moods of this mercurial lake, in a short space to a raging hurricane. In this case it is not safe to be in these waters; and at the south-west end of the lake it is a sad fate which drives steamer or barque too close to the rock cliffs, which frown in sombre gloom along the American shore in the vicinity of Cleveland. This lake is veritably a lake of wrecks, and in past years its sand-dune beaches were strewn with the disasters of a century on its smiling but treacherous bosom. Lake Erie is larger than Ontario, but is shallow and tempestuous and is dangerous for navigation. Its shores on the Canadian side are bleak in places, where vast sand-dunes skirt its waters. This gives a lonely wildness to its coast scenery. But the climate in the vicinity of this lake is the mildest in Ontario, and the villages on its shores are delightful summer resorts. The country bordering on Erie is famous for its fine fruits, the production of grapes being very profitable. In the vicinity of St. Catharines and at Point Pelee Island there are extensive vineyards, and the wine of the latter locality is quite noted. The principal towns on the Canadian shore are Port Colborne, Port Dover and Port Stanley. They are points of shipping for a large carrying trade, but the great shipping ports are the American cities, Buffalo, Toledo and Sandusky. Here commences one of the largest lines of inland water traffic in the whole world. Those who know little of our inland seas, think of them as vast, unploughed wastes of desolate waters. But from here up, the lakes, especially on the American side, begin to assume the appearance rather of a vast canal, with their endless chain of vessels of all sorts laden with freight for the far west. Here, also, on the coast are many life-saving stations, where human heroism has performed deeds of valor unsung in the world’s annals, but worthy of being remembered. One lighthouse keeper alone saved during his life scores of lives, and a woman in an autumn storm, years ago, saved a boat’s whole crew at the risk of drowning; but little is now known of this Grace Darling of Lake Erie. This lake is not so redolent of olden romance as the other lakes. It is noted chiefly as the channel of communication between the Upper and Lower waters, and because of its outlet at Niagara. It has not the historical interest that Ontario holds for the reader, or the bold, rugged sublimity of the Upper Lakes. Yet it has a charm and beauty in common with all these fresh-water seas, and could we only go back a century or so, we would find its wide waters the theatre of the feuds of the dusky aborigines who floated along its lonely shores and breasted its broad wastes in their bark canoes, and made war on each others’ hunting grounds from beyond the eastern or western confines of its sparkling surface. The subject of the American Indian is one now long forgotten in our literature. Yet, Fenimore Cooper, that most delightful writer, has made the red man and the early trapper and hunter immortal in his pages. One of his finest tales is called “Oak Openings,” and it deals with a part of the region west of Lake Erie. No one can read this story without feeling the charm of the early pioneer life of this locality as depicted by the genius of the author. Those old days of the wide free water and the virgin wood, with their suggestion of life in the open, have long passed away. The shores of the lakes are now the homes of myriads who have forgotten the pioneer days of their intrepid forefathers. But the lakes remain the same; their skies are just as blue, where the smoke of an ever-widening commerce has not darkened their horizon, and their waters are as limpid, though,— The dream is blown out on the wind, And the dreamer asleep with his kind In the sleep of the Hill; With the freedom and spirit and mind Of a race that is still! CHAPTER IV. Lake St. Clair and the Rivers Detroit and St. Clair. There are birds that like smoke drift over, With a strange and bodeful cry, Into the dream and the distance Of the marshes that southward lie, With their lonely lagoons and rivers, Far under the reeling sky. The River Detroit is one of the most remarkable rivers on the American continent. It forms the boundary line between those portions of Canada and the United States lying between Erie and Lake St. Clair. It flows between a picturesque and productive border of the State of Michigan and the beautiful county of Essex in the Province of Ontario. On its upper bank, near where it leaves Lake St. Clair, is the great American city of Detroit, the metropolis of Michigan—and originally a British possession and from 1792 to 1796 a portion of old Upper Canada. At the first provincial election held for Upper Canada, when Simcoe was Governor, two of the members were elected at Detroit. The Griffin, the first sailing vessel on the Upper Lakes, passed here on its way to Michigan, and stopped for a time before proceeding to Huron. This city was originally founded by a noted Frenchman, the Sieur de Cadilac, and the fort here for long after bore his name. This was the great French settlement to the west of the lakes; and the city still holds the relics and memories of the French aristocracy who first settled the locality. In 1796 Detroit was handed over to the United States, along with the other forts on the American side of the lakes, and in 1812 General Hull from here invaded Canada, but retired shortly after; and the fort of Detroit capitulated to General Brock, the British General and Administrator of the Government of Upper Canada. By this victory the whole State of Michigan came for a time under British rule. The greatest width of the Detroit River is three miles; in its narrowest point opposite the city it is scarcely more than half a mile wide. It is navigable for vessels of the largest class and is one of the finest harbours in America. The waters of the Upper Lakes flow into and through this river on their passage to the lower lakes. There are many islands in the Detroit—Peach Island on the Canadian side was once the home of Pontiac. Others are Grass, Grosse, Turkey, Fox, Fighting, Snake, Hickory, and Mama Juba, with several others. An old French memoir dated 1717 speaks thus of Grosse Island, which is the largest in the river: “It is very fine, fertile and extensive; being, as is estimated, from six to seven leagues in circumference. There is an extraordinary quantity of apple trees on this island, and those who have seen the apples on the ground say they are more than half a foot deep; the apple trees are planted as if methodically and the apples are as large as small pippins.” After the loss of the Griffin no vessels passed into the Upper Lakes for nearly a hundred years. In 1764 the schooners Beaver, Gladwin and Charlotte went to and fro between Niagara and Detroit, carrying chiefly troops, provisions and furs, the trip took from six to nine days. The first vessel built on the Upper Lakes was the Enterprise, launched at Detroit exactly one hundred years after the building and loss of the Griffin. In 1778 the British brig of war arrived at Detroit, making the trip from Buffalo in four days. Owing to the war, none but Government vessels were allowed on the Upper Lakes. In 1780 the captains and crews of nine vessels were under pay at Detroit, and a large dockyard was maintained. The vessels were the Faith, Dunmore, Angelica, Sage, Hope, Welcome, Adventure, Felicity and Wyandotte. In 1782 the following vessels, armed in good order, and all built in Detroit, were in service on Erie, Huron and Michigan: the brig Sage, the schooners Dunmore, Hope, and Faith; the sloops Angelica, Felicity, Wyandotte, and Adventure. All were British. Opposite to Detroit is the growing Canadian town of Windsor, in the picturesque and fertile county of Essex. The scenery on Lake St. Clair is delightful to the eye. For miles and miles its shores are a vast savannah of long, bright green grass, shining in the summer stillness or rippling in sun and shade to the phantom kiss of the vagrant wind— [Illustration: Kincardine Harbour, Lake Huron.] “The deathless dreamer Of the summer world. Fluting through the argent shadow Or the molten shine of the golden, lonesome summer, And its dreams divine.” Behind these vast reaches of meadow loom the dim woods in bold capes, clustered islands and winding avenues. The evil of this locality is the malaria, consequent on the marsh lands and the bad water. The St. Clair is a shallow lake or exaggerated marsh-pond, nearly one hundred miles in circumference, and through it runs the ship channel from the Lower to the Upper Lake region. Several rivers, the Thames, the Huron, and Bear Creek, run into this lake. Of these the Thames was at one time an important stream. It was, ere the forest was cleared from its banks, navigable far into the interior, even as far as Woodstock. It was for years navigable for steamers and schooners for fully thirty miles from its mouth. It has on its banks many fine cities and towns, the chief being London. The country here is a splendid farming region. The River St. Clair has an almost straight course for thirty miles long, and is from a mile to three-quarters in breadth. Its banks are chiefly marsh-land at the lower end, but rise into earth and high clay-banks as it approaches its upper end. Near Belle Riviere Island, which comprises a hundred acres of fine land, is where the Canadian shore was devastated by the American invaders in the war of 1812. Here the banks of the river are dotted with comfortable homes and marked out in picturesque farm lands. [Illustration: On Huron’s Shore.] CHAPTER V. Lake Huron. (October). Miles and miles of lake and forest, Miles and miles of sky and mist, Marsh and shoreland where the rushes Rustle, wind and water kissed; Where the lake’s great face is driving, Driving, drifting into mist. Miles and miles of crimson glories, Autumn’s wondrous fires ablaze; Miles of shoreland red and golden, Drifting into dream and haze; Dreaming where the wods and vapors, Melt in myriad misty ways. Miles and miles of lake and forest, Miles and miles of sky and mist, Wild birds calling where the rushes Rustle, wind and water kissed; Where the lake’s great face is driving, Driving, drifting into mist. After sailing up the St. Clair River, we enter Lake Huron, and the magical world of the Upper Lake region opens upon our view. Here, in a vast sweep of wave and leagues of lonely shoreline, lies a desolation of superb beauty and a dream-land of haunted summers and glorious autumns, wrapped for the most part, even to-day, in an immense solitude. No region in all the world is more suggestive of life and death in their most sublime moods than is this wonderful portion of our northern continent; This magic region of blue waters throbbing, This blown wave-garden ’neath the north world’s span. is unique in enchanting scenery, healthful opens, and wide, ever-changing vistas of blue billow and vanishing coast-line. From Sarnia to Thunder Cape is one long ever recurring experience of beauty, sublimity, romance and history in the journey north and west through the Upper Lake region. [Illustration: A Beach at Goderich, Lake Huron. (R. R. Sallows.)] Centuries ago the early discoverers found these waters much as they are to-day, save for the lovely virgin solitude of their then forest-fringed shores. But even to-day in the twentieth century, out in their open spaces, there are places where one still feels that great sense of loneliness and haunted solitude so pregnant with suggestions of the dim past which are so much associated with these vast inland waters. Nowhere in America is one more aware of the ancient history of our continent than in this beautiful region, where even the most modern steamer takes on suggestions of its environment; and mystery enwraps and dissolves the commonplace in its elusive folds of mist and sky-line. Here even at mid-day in summer there are islands and lonely coves, as haunted and peopled with ghosts as grimmest midnight, so desolately remote is its whole atmosphere and spirit from all that is ephemeral and modern. It seems, at times, that this portion of our continent has thrown over it a spell of some enchantment laid by the peoples of the dim past who once dwelt here in the bygone ages, a spell which still lingers in the fitting environment of spectral water and fading, haze-wrapt shore. Out over the heaving Of blue waters, leaving The land far behind,— And dipping ships’ hulls:— or where All the day the blue jay calls Throughout the autumn lands. or where, as in a dream, The golden summers they go and they come, The seasons they wake and they sleep, The partridge drum and the wild bees’ hum Are heard over meadow and deep. Or it may be that even the creatures of the forest know this in some dim way;— And ever at midnight white and drear, When the dim moon sheddeth her light, Will the startled deer, As they speed by here, Slacken their phantom-like flight;— And into the shade that the forest hath made A wider circle they take; For they dread Lest their tread Wake the sleep of the dead In haunted mountain and lake. [Illustration: Goderich, Lake Huron.] This may be only some subtle effect of nature’s supreme loneliness; or it may be a spirit of the past:— As though some wild lake-spirit, long ago Soul-wronged, through hundred years its wounded woe, Moans out in vain, across each wasted beach. Huron of all the lakes is the one which belongs exclusively to Western Ontario. Its vast coast-line from the precincts of the St. Clair to the Indian Peninsula and around to Collingwood and Penetanguishene, is a wall of crag, marsh-land, sand-dune, clay-cliff and pebbly beach, stretching for hundreds of miles. From Sarnia to Collingwood is a delightful trip for the tourist. The St. Clair Flats, the commencement of this region, are a great expanse of fertile river-meadows and lonely marshes, where wild-fowl have abounded from the beginning of time. Here are also the Sand Hills, a long range of mounds barely clad with vegetation, whose sands drift and blow about in every storm like snow. The country in this vicinity is finely cultivated and beautiful, and, in places, bears a resemblance to England. But as we go north to Huron it is wilder and more desolate, where the St. Clair River flows from the lake, and here we enter the true Upper Lake region. Now we are at last in the open lake, and experience the great sweep of storm at desolate seasons of the year. The Canadian shore of Huron is exceedingly beautiful and picturesque. Many rivers enter the lake on this coast, but there are few good harbours until Georgian Bay is reached. The shore in places is bold, and clay-banks over one hundred and fifty feet in height front the water for miles. North of these again, immense lonesome sand-dunes line the shore. The long peninsula, stretching out between Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, and terminating in Cabot’s Head has for the most part bold and precipitous shores. There are a few good harbours on the Georgian Bay side. There is little beach on this coast, what there is being chiefly gravel, and the surf here beats upon the shores as violently as the ocean. Storms on Lake Huron rise very suddenly, and the waves attain a fearful height. In autumn a storm on Lake Huron off the peninsula coast is terrific and grand in the extreme. Many wrecks have occurred for years back on these coasts, and a portion of the settlers at one time lived almost entirely upon the wreckage which came ashore from the pitiless, devouring lake. Here there are a few islands, which are mere reefs of sand and rock some distance off shore near a place called Oliphant. [Illustration: Regatta Race. Oliphant, Lake Huron.] The blue lake is rocking, Out over its bosom the white gulls are flocking, Far down in the west the dim islands are lying, While through the hushed vapors the shores are replying. These islands are in sight of the land, and on one of them, called Main Station, there is the ruin of an old French or Hudson Bay fort. Its walls, and an old chimney stack, still stand, and there are all sorts of old legends concerning this place. There is also the tale of two brass cannon to be seen beneath the clear water somewhere off Cabot’s Head. They are supposed to be relics of the ill-fated Griffin, the first European vessel to sail those inland seas. I remember sailing past the beautiful Isle of Coves out there with its picturesque lighthouse on one June day just at dawn. The island with its smooth beaches, and few trees, and the tall, round, white tower of smooth stone, and slate-roofed stone house, had a perfect appearance of beauty which I have never forgotten. The crags and the low shores kneel Like ghosts, in the fogs that reel, And glide, and shiver, and feel For the shores with their shadowy hands. Earth and heaven are grey, The worlds of waters are grey, And out in the fog-haunted day— A spectre—the lighthouse stands. [Illustration: Lake Huron at Goderich Harbour. (R. R. Sallows.)] Lake Huron, so called from the ancient Indian tribe of that name, is bounded on the north by a region, in many places, of rugged hills, vast morasses, and rocky barrens. In some portions, especially the eastern part of Georgian Bay, it is studded with innumerable islands of all sizes, from diminutive rocks barely emerging from the waves, to lofty table lands, forty or fifty miles in extent. The chain of islands, of which the greatest is the Manitoulin, divides the lake, and stretches from the end of the great Indian Peninsula to the La Cloche region. The great southern region of this lake is deep, broad and is as free for navigation as the mid-Atlantic. The next great portion in size is Georgian Bay, over one hundred and sixty miles long. Along the lake shore from Sarnia north are Goderich, Kincardine, Port Elgin, and Southampton; all picturesque lake ports and delightful summer resorts. Wiarton, Owen Sound, Meaford and Collingwood, on Georgian Bay are also fine ports, and popular summer haunts. Owen Sound and Collingwood are cities and the headquarters of lake and railway lines, while Wiarton, a lovely town, is on one of the finest natural harbours on the lakes. Across from Wiarton on Lake Huron is a splendid beach and a magnificent stretch of open lake. At the entrance to Colpoys Bay are three islands, White Cloud, Hay, and Griffiths, which protect the harbour and afford a fine roadstead for vessels running to shelter from sudden storm. These islands are delightful resorts for the sportsman and yachtsman. Dawn in the Island Camp. Red in the mists of the morning, Angry, colored with fire, Beats the great lake in its beauty, Rocks the wild lake in its ire. Tossing from headland to headland, Tipped with the glories of dawn, With gleaming, wide reaches of beaches, That stretch out far, wind-swept and wan. Behind, the wild tangle of island, Swept and drenched by the gales of the night; In front, lone stretches of water Flame-bathed by the incoming light. Dim the dark reels and dips under, Night wavers and ceases to be; As God sends the manifold mystery Of the morning and lake round to me. [Illustration: Lake Storm at Entrance to Kincardine Harbour, Lake Huron.] Cabot’s Head is the extreme head of the great Indian Peninsula which separates Lake Huron from Georgian Bay. It is a remarkable headland and runs northerly for over thirty miles; and is made up of lofty limestone bluffs, or indented crags, sometimes over three hundred feet high, skirted by reefs and islands. The group of sacred islands, of which the Grand Manitoulin is the largest, are four in number; the other three are, Drummond Island, the Little Manitoulin, and the Grand Island. The Isle of Coves lies between these and Cabot’s Head. The Great or Grand Manitoulin Island, the sacred island of the Indians, is, much of it, rugged, lofty and precipitous; having the appearance from the lake of a great succession of plateaus. The scenery is magnificent, and the land in many parts is very fertile. Its shores are deeply indented with great bays or sounds, which are splendid harbours. The island is nearly eighty miles long. Here the summer, as it generally is in Western Ontario, is dry and hot; and the region is favorable to the growth of fruits, and all grains, while fine grazing lands abound. These islands on their northern sides end in precipices or walls dipping straight down into the lake. One island, which is named Wall Island, has a submerged wall on its northern side. Two miles out the water has a depth of six feet, but suddenly a sheer cliff is found descending to a depth of one hundred and thirty-eight feet. On the Ledge. I lie out here on a ledge with the surf on the rocks below me, The hazy sunlight above and the whispering forest behind; I lie and listen, O lake, to the legends and songs you throw me, Out of the murmurous moods of your multitudinous mind. I lie and listen a sound like voices of distant thunder, The roar and throb of your life in your rock wall’s mighty cells; Then after a softer voice that comes from the beaches under; A chiming of waves on rocks, a laughter of silver bells. A glimmer of bird-like boats, that loom from the far horizon; That scud and tack and dip under the gray and the blue; A single gull that floats and skims the waters, and flies on Till she is lost like a dream, in the haze of the distance too. A steamer that rises a smoke, then after a tall, dark funnel, That moves like a shadow across your water and sky’s gray edge; A dull, hard beat of a wave that diggeth himself a tunnel, Down in the crevices dark under my limestone ledge. And here I lie on my ledge, and listen the songs you sing me, Songs of vapor and blue, songs of island and shore; And strange and glad are the hopes and sweet are the thoughts you bring me, Out of the throbbing depths and wells of your heart’s great store. The grand Manitoulin Island is separated from the little Manitoulin Island by a channel four miles across, called the third Detour. On its west end its appearance is very majestic. Toward the north part of the channel the beaches wind in vast curves, lined with stairs or ledges of shingle, walled behind by forests, ascending to the summit. Toward the centre of the island low cliffs and precipices rise from the beaches and gradually increase in height up to the elevation of over two hundred feet. Their summits are crowned by splendid growths of pine and cedar. Their heights are either sheer from their base, or built pile upon pile or thrown together in a strange mass. They form vast terraces along the lake shore, with arches and winding passages. All over-run with wild vines and creeping plants, these great masses of rock have the appearance and give the suggestion of old-world ruins, and the whole region bears about it a lonesome haunted air—suggesting some old association of life in those great, desolate spaces of shore and water. On this and the surrounding islands there are delightful coves, shelters for anchorage from the open lake, where on curved beaches or reedy ledges the waters lap in peaceful and slumbrous voices of summer dream. [Illustration: The Beach, Lake Huron. (R. R. Sallows.)] Manitoulin, or the Sacred Isle. Girdled by Huron’s throbbing and thunder, Out on the drift and lift of its blue; Walled by mists from the world asunder, Far from all hate and passion and wonder, Lieth the isle of the Manitou. Here where the surfs of the great lake trample, Thundering time-worn caverns through; Beating on rock coasts aged and ample, Reareth the Manitou’s mist-walled temple, Floored with forest and roofed with blue. Gray crag-battlements, seared and broken, Keep these passes for ages to come; Never a watchword here is spoken, Never a single sign or token, From hands that are motionless, lips that are dumb. Only the Sun-god rideth over, Marking the seasons with track of flame; Only the wild-fowl float and hover, Flocks of clouds, whose white wings cover Spaces on spaces without a name. Year by year the ages onward Drift, but it lieth out here alone; Earthward the mists and the earth-mists sunward, Starward the days, and the nights blown dawnward, Whisper the forests, the beaches make moan. Far from the world and its passions fleeting, ’Neath quiet of noon-day and stillness of star, Shore unto shore each sendeth greeting; Where the only woe is the surf’s wild beating That throbs from the maddened lake afar. [Illustration: View of Colpoys Bay from Park, Wiarton.] CHAPTER V. Georgian Bay. Down from Cabot’s Head the coast on the Georgian Bay side is rugged and picturesque. The Flower Pot Island and the Isle of Coves are now famous for the many wrecks in their vicinity. Every autumn when the “wild October,” or “the bleak November” “Wakes the lake in maddened fear,” there are ill-fated vessels driven on this inhospitable coast, and pounded to wreck by the iron surfs of wintry Huron. The lake’s toll of deaths at this time includes many, and this tragedy of the lake region is enacted each succeeding year. Along this coast, Hope Bay and Lion’s Head, with Cape Croker Harbour, as well as Colpoys Bay and Owen Sound already mentioned, are passed on the way to Collingwood at the southern end of Nottawasaga Bay. The limestone crags at Colpoys Bay and Owen Sound are high and picturesque. Near Wiarton, the Spirit Rock, a lofty ledge over-looking the deep water, is noted for its legend of the lover’s leap. There is on the front of this ledge the appearance of a giant face, standing out as though carved thereon. Below this ledge years ago there was found in the excavation for a lime kiln two wooden idols, having silver eyes, which opened and shut on the manipulation of a thong. These idols were unfortunately destroyed in the fire which burnt the main building of Toronto University some years ago. Across the bay on the distant shore in another lofty ledge are the Bruce’s Caves, great arches in the cliff’s face. Near here and at Hope Bay are remains of a great ancient Indian battle-ground. At the latter place the skeletons are found buried standing up in pits. Near here signs of coal have been discovered in the rocks, and below Wiarton, at Hepworth, seven miles inland, several powerful gas wells have been bored, which have been used to heat and light that village. There is no doubt that these gas wells are connected with the oil fields, and also with the coal beds, of the Pennsylvania country. There are signs of oil and coal in the territory near Wiarton and Hepworth. Below Owen Sound is a fine agricultural, fruit and grazing country sloping down to the shores of Georgian Bay; and the whole county of Grey to Meaford and Thornbury is a picturesque hilly slope along the bay shore. Nottawasaga Bay, the extreme south-east of Georgian Bay, is very beautiful. It is vast and semi-circular in formation, fully sixteen miles in circumference. On a fine summer or early autumn day the lake, its sandy shores and woods and islands sparkle in the sunlight with an exquisite color. In front the gaze goes out over the waters that seem never to end; while the soft roll of smooth billows on sandy beaches make their gentle music to the day. Here in the background rise the beautiful Blue Mountains, purpling in the distance in the vicinity of Thornbury and Collingwood, one of the leading lake ports. The beach of Nottawasaga, curving round the bay, is famous as a noted driveway. “One of the most curious things in the shallow parts of Huron,” writes one traveller, “is to sail or row over the sublacune mountains and to feel giddy from fancy, for it is like being in a balloon, so pure and tintless is the water.” Parry Sound, an arm of Georgian Bay, is a magnificent stretch of water about twelve miles across and contains one large island and numerous small ones. It is in places nearly four hundred feet deep; its shores are fir-clad hills; and it abounds in rocky inlets and open basins of beautiful water-stretches. On the north of Georgian Bay, after passing the famous Christian Islands, there is a remarkable island about three miles long, and almost oval in shape. This island can be seen from a great distance out on the lake and bears a strong resemblance to a great cairn from which it earns its name, The Giant’s Tomb. It is really a lofty solid mass of limestone, with a flat top, surrounded by a wide level of low land and beach. The shores are very interesting, being formed partly of great masses of drifted sand, and masses of feldspar and other rocks in rolled blocks, as though left there for some purpose by builders who had been interrupted in their work, which remains unfinished until this day. [Illustration: On the Lake—Collingwood.] The shores in this vicinity are made up of headlands, deep inlets of great marshes and gloomy rocky lagoons of still water extending inland for miles. August Night, on Georgian Bay. The day dreams out, the night is brooding in, Across this world of vapor, wood, and wave. Things blur and dim. Cool silvery ripples lave The sands and rustling reed-beds. Now begin Night’s dreamy choruses, the murmurous din Of sleepy voices. Tremulous, one by one, The stars blink in; the dusk drives out the sun; And all the world the hosts of darkness win. Anon, through mists, the harvest moon will come, With breathing flames, above the forest edge; Flooding the silence in a silvern dream: Conquering the night and all its voices dumb, With unheard melodies. While all agleam, Low flutes the lake along the lustrous sedge. The large rivers of Lake Huron are not many. There are five, all on its northern shore: the Severn, the Spanish, French, Mississagi, and the St. Mary, which connects it with Superior. On the north coast of the lake, near the mouth of the French River, there are a series of high hills which skirt the shore in slopes and narrow ridges, and are often imposing in appearance. Near here are the Fox Islands, which are mostly high rocks, jutting out of the lake, with a sparse growth of pine. Farther to the west is Collins Sound, a vast, almost circular, bay, surrounded by mountains whose feet the waters lap. In the distance to the south-west the dim blue outline of the Great Manitoulin Island, lofty and shadowy, stands against the sky. At Point Colles, a great white rock over three hundred and fifty feet high rises above the woods, and stands out like a vast landmark. Near here is an old ruined French fort built on the lake shore, and over a hundred and fifty years old. [Illustration: Docks—Collingwood.] After leaving these lonely shorelands of desolate cranberry marshes, the high and wooded shores of La Cloche are reached. From the La Morandiere channel the mainland is majestic. Sheer eminences of snowy quartz rise seven hundred feet high in places; and on the opposite shore the Manitoulin with its lofty slopes and terraces equals the other in beauty of wild scenery, while in between a seemingly endless succession of wide waters meets the view. The island of La Cloche, a lofty compact mass of rock, gets its name from the fact that some of its rocks on being struck ring out and reverberate like the loud note of a bell. Before reaching the little Sagamuk River, the shores grow lower, and the islands along the shore are more numerous, while between the great Manitoulin and the main land are several large islands. The river called the little Sagamuk, runs into a shallow bay or cove, which is sheltered by a group of islands formed out of the trap rock. This river is forty feet wide at its mouth; but its chief attractions are its falls, which are near the shore of the bay, the stream descending suddenly over a precipice twenty feet in height. This place, like others on this coast, used to be the haunt of roving groups of Indians, who inhabited its precincts. This portion of Lake Huron is very beautiful with its variety of islands and shores, lofty cliff and low-wooded beaches. In the early days the explorer found this region enchanting, and clothed with a romantic beauty. Skirting this vast shoreline, past the Spanish River, Spanish Bay, the Mississagi River, with the myriad bays and beautiful islands, and sanded shores curving in sun and shadow; and along lofty bluffs, and wooded crags; Thessalon and the famous Bruce Mines are reached. The rocks which comprise the Bruce Mines are greenstone, granites, sienitic conglomerate, with slate and quartz rock. Copper is the most plentiful of the metals found here. These mines have been worked for many years, as early as 1848. In one month the yield was two hundred and fifty tons of ore. From Thessalon to Pelletan the lake voyage is interesting. The lake and shore views being universally fine, the succession of hill-ranges inland continuing; Drummond Island and the other Manitoulin Islands looming blue and dim in the remote distance with St. Joseph in the foreground. [Illustration: Fishing on French River, Georgian Bay.] [Illustration: Wilson Channel, North Shore, Georgian Bay.] The islands in Georgian Bay are very beautiful, and are associated, as all this coast is, with history and legend. Alexander Henry, the noted fur trader and traveller, who sailed up Lake Huron about the middle of the eighteenth century, thus describes his first experience of Georgian Bay. He had canoed up the French River from Lake Nipissing, and entered Huron from the mouth of that river. He says in his journal: “On the thirty-first day of August we entered the lake, the waves running high from the south, and breaking over numerous rocks. At first I thought the prospect alarming, but the canoes rode on the water with the ease of a sea-bird, and my apprehensions ceased. Many of these rocks are sunken and not without danger, when the wind, as at this time it was, is from the south.” Henry had a strange experience with the Indians in this lake, and saw many curious and remarkable things, as did others of the early explorers. He visited the Island of La Cloche—so called because it contains a rock which on being struck rings like a bell. There are several large rocks on this island which give this loud ringing sound when struck. He was present at the consultation and invocation of The Great Turtle, a performance at once weird and uncanny. This religious ceremony was performed by an Indian priest in the presence of a large audience of Indians, and Henry says: “The tent began to shake, the sounds of numerous voices were heard beneath, some yelling, some barking as dogs, some howling like wolves, and in this horrible concert were mingled screams and sobs as of despair and anguish and the sharpest pain. Articulated speech was also uttered, as from human lips, but in a tongue unknown to any of the audience.” After these had ceased the Spirit of the Great Turtle was heard to speak in an unknown tongue, which was translated by the priest. He was consulted by the chief of the village as to the question of making war on the English, and was regarded by all as their oracle, and the answers were obeyed religiously. The whole rite here described shows a social condition superior to mere savagery, and a remains of some ancient cult and gift similar to those of the East Indies. He was also a witness to the serpent-worship, where several Indians offered incense to an immense rattlesnake. He says: “They followed me to the spot with their pipes and tobacco pouches in their hands. On returning I found the snake still coiled. The Indians on their part surrounded it, all addressing it by turns, and calling it their grandfather; but yet keeping at some distance. During this part of the ceremony they filled their pipes, and now each blew the smoke towards the snake, who, as it appeared to me, really received it with pleasure. In a word, after remaining coiled and receiving incense for the space of half an hour, it stretched itself along the ground, in visible good humor. Its length was between four and five feet. Having remained outstretched for some time, at last it moved slowly away, the Indians following it, and still addressing it by the title of grandfather.” He next describes a storm: “At nine o’clock a.m. we had a slight breeze astern, to enjoy the benefit of which we hoisted sail. Soon after the wind increased, and the Indians, beginning to be alarmed, frequently called on the rattlesnake to come to their assistance. By degrees the waves grew high, and at eleven o’clock it blew a hurricane, and we expected every moment to be swallowed up. From prayers the Indians now proceeded to sacrifices, both alike offered to the god rattlesnake or manito-kinibic. One of the chiefs took a dog, and after tying its forelegs together, threw it overboard.” He also found that the Indians had a rational tradition of the deluge, and its effect on the country. Henry visited the famous island of Michilimackinac, with the Indians, and to save his life from the drunken warriors, his friend the chief took him up the mountain at the centre of the island, where they came to a large cave. Here Henry slept all night, and waking up in the morning discovered that he had slept on a great number of human skulls and bones. This was the noted Cave of Skulls. The Indians seemed not to have known what was in the cave. This island which is now known as Mackinaw is rugged and picturesque in its scenery. Besides the Cave of Skulls is the famous Arched Rock, which faces the north, rising to the height of two hundred feet, a superb piece of wave-worn architecture, appearing like a vast gateway leading to some unknown region, or an ancient ruin built by some vanished Titan race. Another noted object is the Needle or Sugar Loaf, a gigantic tower-like rock, over-looking the whole island. From its summit the view is extended and beautiful; north are the islands of St. Martin, and east is Lake Huron, vast and alluring, melting into distance. [Illustration: Owen Sound Harbour, Georgian Bay.] Each island and shore on this vast lake has some peculiar tradition. On the Georgian Bay side was the famous Huron Mission of the Jesuit fathers, where lived and died the great French Count and priest Breboeuf and his devoted followers. In the beautiful mountain country about Collingwood these missionaries wandered, ministering to the simple folk of the region, who dwelt in the peace of their cornfields until the fierce storm of Iroquois hate burst upon, and overwhelmed them. I have often wandered, as a boy, through forests sacred to the Peton or Tobacco Indians, by the lovely and sublime shores of Huron and Georgian Bay. Here are still found remains of old burial grounds of these and more ancient peoples. That they had idols which they worshipped has been proved; and as we have seen, the remains of the mound-builders are still found on the borders of these lakes. Lake Huron has its part in the great commerce of the West. From Sarnia to Mackinaw, in the shipping season, there stretches a long trail of smokestack and sail, until on some days the lake is but a wide canal. Grain elevators and floating grain tanks have largely taken the place of the canoe and the fur trading post. But the romance of the past has not altogether vanished. Wreck and storm have now, as ever, their part on this vast inland sea. Such ports as Sault Ste. Marie, Owen Sound, Collingwood, Goderich, and Sarnia, with their vast dry-docks, elevators and shipyards, bid fair to rival the great ports on the American side of the lakes. The world gradually changes, though perchance not for the better. We have seen a century of Huron, passing slowly from the dominion of the savage to what we call the civilization of the white man. We have seen the great forests destroyed, the pure waters polluted, the kindly climate changed, the great aspect of nature’s beauty marred and obliterated. We have brought about all of this in the name of civilization, and we call it progress. It is true the savage yell is not heard, nor is the gleam of the tomahawk seen in the land. But the cruel din and whirr of the child-enslaving factory, the hideous squeezing of our peoples into the rotten purlieus of teeming, unhealthy cities, is likely to have as sure a harvest of human victims as ever the scalping knife knew. [Illustration: Bridal Veil Falls, near Kagawong, Manitoulin Island, North Shore of the Georgian Bay.] Evil as the so-called savage was, he, at least, loved God’s opens and worshipped him in the wind and thunder, and was in his way, a man and not a mere mime. It is true that there are hundreds of lovely towns and villages and hamlets on the Canadian shores of Huron, which are the homes of our people. But are we as a people as true to the Spartan virtues as were, in their way, the Indians whom we have displaced? Let us hope that we are. If we are not, it is not the fault of our environment. Summer and winter, autumn and spring, the influence of this great lake is for the strengthening of our character. Next to the mountains and sea of our ancient mother, Britain, no cradle for the rearing of a great people could be more fitting than the shores of this vast lake. All that spirit of the seafaring soul, the daring of the navigator, the love of the open, the search for adventure, is here met and satisfied. The eye of the artist, the ear of the musician, the soul of the poet, must appreciate this wide world of shore and billow and sky. Here the soul of man can move with the infinite, unfettered, In the world of the wave and the wind, Where the doors, eternal, of fancy Are open forever behind; Where the haunting windows of memory Know no curtain or blind. [Illustration: Island in Georgian Bay.] CHAPTER VI. Lake Michigan. And far from some caverned shore, There cometh the distant roar Of the lake-surf’s beat and din; While wraith-like over the land, From low white isles of sand Of far off Michigan, The fogs come drifting in. It seems absurd to include Michigan in a series of essays on the Canadian Lake region, and yet it would be even more absurd to omit this great inland sea from our survey of the Lake country. This lake, originally called the Lake of the Illinois, is the only one of the great waters wholly within the borders of the United States, and of it we know less than we do of the other lakes. It is the most remote, and in a sense, off the main track of the great water-way from the St. Lawrence to the Canadian West. Beyond the fact that it has two huge cities, Chicago, the American capital of the middle west, and Milwaukee, for its lake ports, it has no present personality as a lake beyond its size, and its place on the map in the great chain of lakes. Yet there is no Canadian lake which has a more interesting history, and the past of Canada and the early discovery and exploration of the West would be incomplete without the story of this remarkable and beautiful body of water. Next to Superior, it is the largest of the lakes, though narrower than Huron, which is one hundred and one miles wide at its greatest width and seven hundred and two feet deep, whereas Michigan is only eighty-four miles wide, but eight hundred and seventy feet in depth. This lake is three hundred and forty-five miles long, and stretches almost north and south, connecting with Huron at its north-east corner by the narrow Strait of Mackinaw, just west of the famous island of that name in Lake Huron. There are several groups of islands in Michigan at its northern end, but the larger portion of the lake is devoid of islands, and comprises a vast and open inland sea. An early memory of mine connected with this lake is passing these islands on a dull June day in a sort of fog. I remember them as long and low, being seemingly large sand banks, looming out of the gray waters. I will always carry with me this idea of Michigan, connected with its immense lake traffic, to Chicago. Its shores are desolate-looking and bleak, comprising, on one coast, the mining and lumber districts of the State of the same name. Great distances and loveliness are characteristic of its waters, with a suggestion of getting into a primeval world. The scenery is not as impressive, or as startling as that of Huron or Superior; but the whole lake gives one the feeling of being lost in vast spaces and dim distances, such as is only felt in some parts of the ocean. In the summer season the haze over the lake, with the smoke of vessels, adds to this a dreamy, elusive atmosphere, which, with the slow rolling heavy waves, suggests a land of fantasy such as that of the fabled Lotus Eaters. Here ever on, through drive and drift, ’Neath blue and grey, through hush and moan, These ceaseless waters ebb and lift Past shores of century-crumbling stone. And under ever-changing skies, Swell, throb and break on kindling beach; Where fires of dawn responsive rise, In answer to their mystic speech. Past lonely haunts of gull and loon, Past solitude of land-locked bays, Whose bosoms rise to meet the moon, Beneath their silvered film of haze. Where mists and fogs in ghostly bands, Vague, dim, moon-clothed in spectral light; Drift in from far-off haunted lands, Across the silences of night. In 1618 Jean Nicolet, a youth of Cherbourg, France, came to Canada as an employee of the Company of the Hundred Associates. On the 4th of July, 1634, he left Three Rivers, and voyaged in a canoe among the islands of the Georgian Bay and the north-west portion of Lake Huron; and passing through the Straits of Mackinaw was the first white man to enter Lake Michigan. He was greatly impressed by its beauty and vast size and the great possibilities of the trade in the vicinity of its waters. La Salle in 1678-9, proceeding up the St. Lawrence, laid the foundation of Fort Niagara, in the country of the Iroquois. He passed up the Niagara River and described the falls as being six hundred feet high. He then proceeded through Lakes Erie, St. Clair and Huron, and arrived at Michilimackinac in the late summer of 1679. He then, after visiting Lake Michigan, returned to Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario in 1680. With La Salle was the noted Father Hennepin, whose history of these expeditions is well known and interesting. In 1703, La Hontan, a French Baron, published in London the account of his voyage in North America. He was an officer, and had been stationed during six years at Fort Frontenac, Niagara, St. Joseph, at the foot of Lake Huron, and at the Sault Ste. Marie. La Hontan’s account was derived from actual experience, and while some of his relations seem incredible, such as his story of the country of the Long River with its cities; yet, there is reason to believe that there is some foundation even for what have been called his romances. In 1721 Charlevoix, the historian of New France, made a tour of the Canadas as the Commissioner of the French Government. He published a journal of his voyage through the lakes. He traversed Erie, Huron and Michigan. In 1760 Alexander Henry went as a trader through the Upper Lakes, and spent sixteen years in that and the adjoining regions of North America. His account is a valuable means of knowledge of this great region in his day. In 1766 Jonathan Carver made an extensive journey through the Upper Lake region; and in 1819 Henry R. Schoolcraft, an American, accompanied Governor Cass of Michigan in a long tour along the American shores. In all of these accounts there are remarkable pictures of the lakes, their shores, the people who inhabited the region, and the customs and traditions, legends and prehistoric remains peculiar to the locality. With the great La Salle was associated another intrepid spirit, Henry de Tonty, the son of a banker of Naples, who had fought in seven campaigns in the French army. This extraordinary man, it is said, wore an iron hand to replace the one lost in battle. He became the intimate friend of La Salle, and his lieutenant in the daring explorations through the Canadian Lake region, and west and south to the Mississippi. He was associated with La Salle in the unfortunate voyage of the ill-fated Griffin, and penetrated into the country of the Illinois. The great scheme which Tonty planned was to build a chain of forts from Frontenac on Lake Ontario to the head of the Mississippi. This remarkable man’s toils, adventures and sufferings, are with La Salle’s, among the most thrilling episodes of the early explorations of the Upper Lake region and the middle west. The shores of Lake Michigan were witnesses to the privations endured by him and his followers. One description says: “Tonty and his companions toiled along the western shore of Lake Michigan. In their crazy craft they coasted for days, living on nuts, roots and wild garlic, which they dug from under the frozen snow. It grew bitterly cold, their foot-gear gave out, and they improvised moccasins by cutting the beaver mantle of poor Father Gabriel into strips and tying them with thongs made of the same material. For fifteen days they subsisted on the scanty fare dug out of the frozen ground.” Tonty, like his great fellow explorer La Salle, literally disappeared in the western wilds. Where his bones rest is not known. At Biloxi Bay in Louisiana, in 1704, he died a victim to pestilence and his own unselfish spirit which animated him to the end. If his spirit, as that of La Salle’s, roams anywhere, it should be in the vast precincts of this great inland sea, whose restless waters echo the unsatisfied longings of their great souls. This lake is especially associated with La Salle and Pere Marquette and the ill-fated Griffin. It was across its lonely waters that this vessel sailed on its only voyage of the lakes; and it was on the return trip in the autumn, laden with furs, that the Griffin was lost, whether in Michigan or Huron will never be known. It was across Michigan that La Salle went on his last journey down the Mississippi, from which he was fated never to return. On its shores the famed Father Marquette has a river and a lake port still bearing his name. It was one of the greatest roadways for the early fur-traders to the middle west, and, for a long time the territory forming its shores was claimed by different nations and peoples. The French, British and Americans all had it, or claimed it, in turn; and in the year 1781 St. Joseph was actually captured by the Spaniards, who held the territory to the west of the Mississippi. The territory of Michigan was a part of New France or Old Canada; and the earliest history of this lake will be found in the accounts of Hennepin, Tonty, La Hentau and Charlevoix. It was not only a remote highway of the missions and fur-trader to the south-west, but was also the watery track of La Salle and his associates, those argonauts of the Mississippi. Here, lone La Salle, proud restless spirit, came, Whom no ill-fate could tame: And o’er thy waters with prophetic soul, Saw his vast river, southward, brimming, roll. And ’neath fate’s iron caress, Did he, foreboding, dream undying fame, Earth’s saddest death and grave without a name In the lone wilderness? Over its lonely breast La Salle dreamed a new world for the King of France. Down its haunted and picturesque shores Marquette and his followers paddled, guided by their dusky pilots of the unknown. Here on silent beaches the cross was raised and Te Deums sung; and, here it is said, some of the seeds of the fruits of Europe were first planted by these noble pioneers, in the aboriginal clearings. Here they found, as they did on the Upper Ottawa and on Georgian Bay, planted fields and towns and the simpler arts of civilization. It is a pity that the condition of the country as the first discoverers found it, has not been more accurately chronicled. Yet a vast amount of information regarding the aborigines remains in the journals and correspondence of the early travellers. The chief object of all the early explorers was to discover a short route to what was called the Western sea, and thus to reach China and the East Indies, which were at that time (1670) regarded by Louis XIV. and other European monarchs as mines of wealth. St. Lusson, one of the voyagers in 1671, supposed that he, on the Upper Lake journey, had been within three hundred leagues from the Vermillion or South Sea and the Western Sea, where there was but fifteen hundred leagues more of navigation to Tartary, China and Japan. This Vermillion Sea was, on the old maps, in the vicinity of California. It has never been explained why, or where the early explorers got this idea of the neighborhood of Asia, except from the natives. This would therefore show a tradition or knowledge of the Far East which has not been commonly granted to the native Indians. In connection with this effort to discover the western passage the most romantic and tragic incident is the history of the Griffin. In the winter of 1678-9 La Salle began building the vessel a few miles above Niagara Falls. She was of sixty tons burden, and was completed in the spring or early summer of 1679. They called her the Griffin, that heraldic monster comprising part of the arms of Frontenac; and the figure of a griffin carved in wood was borne on her bow. The little ship had five small brass cannon and two arquebuses. On the quarter-deck castle was the carved figure of an eagle. It is remarkable the number of people she carried on her voyage. According to the old drawings she had the high stern and after cabin of the time, and she must have made a picturesque and solitary figure as she penetrated those unknown and chartless seas, the pioneer of old-world shipping on their lonely waters. According to all accounts she was no rude ship, but well and carefully built by fine marine artists and artisans, as some of the carvings about her appointments would show. I remember seeing at Quebec last year the “Don de Dieu,” Champlain’s vessel, floating on the St. Lawrence. Would it not be interesting to have a celebration, somewhere on the Upper Lakes, of the early discovery there, and reconstruct the Griffin and have her sail into Detroit, or Green Bay. [Illustration: Moonlight.] They were no ordinary men who set sail on this first voyage on the Upper Lakes. La Salle, in addition to his sailors and other followers, had with him three priests, Gabriel de la Riborde, the last of that family of Burgundian nobility; Father Zenobi Membri; and last, though not least, the historian Hennepin, of whose character there are many diverse accounts. If there was a Jonah among the three, by all accounts it must have been the latter, who was the historian of the expedition, but who has in several quarters been discredited. If the different accounts are to be believed, there was not perfect amity among the leaders of this most interesting voyage. The vessel was manned by voyageurs and others trained by experience of the waters and shores; and the chief sailor was one Lucas, an old salt, a mariner of some note. On the seventh day of August the vessel sailed on her voyage, leaving her moorings amid the chant of Te Deums and thunder of her small cannon. She had a favorable voyage up Lake Erie, dropping her anchor in the Detroit River on the evening of the tenth day of the same month. On the eleventh the vessel again weighed anchor and entered the strait. The account of Hennepin, as does the narratives of La Hentau and Charlevoix, gives an enthusiastic description of the wonderful country on the shores as they passed. On the twelfth of August they came to Lake St. Clair, but did not reach the open waters of Huron until the twenty-third of the month. They encountered a storm off what is now Saginaw Bay, and thought that they were doomed; but while they were for some time in great peril of foundering, they weathered the gale, and after this experience of the terrors of the inland seas, reached the island of Mackinaw. Early in September La Salle sailed from Mackinaw, and for the first time a European ship entered the waters of Lake Michigan. According to the account they did not sail down the lake, but struck directly west across the northern end and passing the Potawatomic and Roch Islands, arrived at Green Bay, in the country of the Menomonies. Here La Salle loaded the vessel with furs and sent her back east, while he coasted, evidently in canoes, along the east shore of the lake to the River St. Joseph. That the Griffin set sail on her return voyage with a valuable cargo of furs late in September, or early in October, is all that is known of her. Her subsequent fate is a mystery. It is possible that her high build made it impossible for her to withstand a storm in the autumn on either Michigan or Huron. As we know, who understand the lakes, there are some autumn storms on Huron, Superior and Michigan which no vessel could weather; and it is quite probable that this little vessel was the first to succumb to the fierce October, when:— Rises the wild red dawn over the icicled edges Of black, wet, cavernous rocks, sheeted and winter-scarred. Or:— Shadowy, ghost-like shores, where midnight surfs are booming Thunders of wintry woe over the spaces wan. Certain, it is, that she disappears from our ken, and vanishes into the limbo of all forgotten things at that time of the year, the very grandest and most tragical of all our seasons, majestic autumn. When the shores and wooded heights were clad in all their funereal splendors and the year mourned the summer dead, into the haze and mist of the Canadian autumn she drifted out of sight and out of mind;— And, vanishing, left but an echo In silence of moon-dim caves; Where, haze-wrapt, the August night slumbers, Or the wild heart of October raves. What was the final tragedy; and how and when the end came, history will never reveal. Whether she foundered in the vast open and went down into the hundred fathoms deep, or struck at midnight; When along the black, wet ledges Under icy caverned edges Broke the lake in maddened fear,— will ever remain a mystery. Whether there was something else, capture by the Indians, or treachery and mutiny on the part of the crew, is also a debated question. There are grounds for believing either supposition. At least the tragedy and mystery remain and will ever cast a glamor of romance over Michigan and Huron; and if there is ever to be a Vanderdecken of the lakes, it will be the ghost-ship of the seventeenth century, with its quaint bows and high stern, striving to make port in a wild autumnal storm, while with her forever travel the haunted “Children of the Foam”:— You may hear their mournful chanting And their voices, haunting, haunting, Through the night’s mad melodies. Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam. Come they from a land of gloaming, Children lost, forever homing; Never, never reaching there; Ride they, ride they, ever faster, Driven by their demon master, The wild Wind in his despair; Ride they, ride they, ever home, Wan, white children of the foam. All grey day the black sky under, Where the beaches moan and thunder, Where the breakers spume and comb, You may hear their riding, riding, You may hear their voices chiding, Under glimmer, under gloam;— Like a far-off infant wailing, You may hear their hailing, hailing, For the voices of their home; Ride they, ride they, ever home, Haunted children of the foam. Under pallid moonlight beaming, Under stars of midnight gleaming, And the ebon arch of night; Round the rosy edge of morning, You may hear their distant horning, You may mark their phantom flight; Riding, riding, ever faster, Driven by their demon master, Under darkness, under light; Ride they, ride they, ever home, Wild white children of the foam. But there are other and older associations of tragedy and romance which Michigan has in common with the other lakes. The early discoverers found much to astonish them, not only in the vast natural beauty of scenery of shore and wave and island, but also in the people who made these regions their dwelling place. The religion of the inhabitants was not a rude primitive one, as has been generally supposed. The first voyagers found a paganism not inferior to that of the Orient. There was, as in the East, special places such as Manitoulin and Mackinaw, dedicated to the presence of certain deities. Near the present city of Detroit in Michigan, La Salle found a huge stone idol, of repute as a manitou, and worshipped by the Indians. There were many of these objects of reverence; and offerings of tobacco or incense were made to them. In Lake Huron there was the White Rock, an object of veneration, which Schoolcraft mentions in his journey of 1820. The idol of Detroit was destroyed by the zealous missionaries, which was a great pity; as such relics of old religions should have been preserved. There were several islands which were regarded as sacred and unapproachable by the Indians, as dwelling places of the manitou, and supposed to be guarded by mysterious and terrible spirits and serpents. Some of these islands have either disappeared, or cannot be found or identified on any chart now existing. The Lake Michigan of to-day is out of the domain of the Canadian people, having long since ceased to be a part of our country. But its past history is ours, and we will never cease as a nation to remember that part which its waters and shores played in the early history of Canada and of the Canadian people. On its southern shores there has risen up one of the largest cities on this continent and a lake port second to none, and equal in its shipping to many world-famed seaports. This city, the second in size in the United States, is dedicated to the most modern materialism, and commerce has made it its greatest northern emporium. Yet is this lake even to-day more interesting to the thinker and lover of the true and beautiful and the worshipper of the noble in humanity;—as being at one time associated with a prehistoric people, who worshipped God in the universe; or as connected with the undying memory of that great discoverer and tragically-fated man, Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, the discoverer of the Mississippi. Though the golden suns have set, And the myriad lives; And the deed and the dreamer have vanished; yet The dream, eternal, survives. CHAPTER VII. Lake Superior. How One Winter Came in the Lake Region. For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still, Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze; The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will, And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill, In those gray, withered days. Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set, At night the moon would nestle in a cloud; The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net; The lake, its shores forgot to chafe and fret, And hushed its caverns loud. Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute, Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream, Or far in swamps the lizard’s lonesome lute Would pipe in thirst; or by some gnarled root, The tree-toad trilled his dream. From day to day still hushed the season’s mood, The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry; Suns rose aghast, by wave and shore and wood; And all the world with ominous silence stood, In weird expectancy. When one strange night, the sun like blood went down, Flooding the heavens in a ruddy hue; Red grew the lake, the sere fields parched and brown, Red grew the marshes where the creeks stole down,— But never a wind-breath blew. That night I felt the winter in my veins, A joyous tremor of the icy glow; And woke to hear the north’s wild vibrant strains, While far and wide, by withered woods and plains, Fast fell the driving snow. The greatest and most remarkable, in every respect, of the Canadian Lakes is Superior, the most remote of the vast chain of famous inland waters. It is considered to be the largest body of fresh water on the globe, and its waves lap the fringes of a region which is famed in New World exploration. Lake Superior has a four-fold interest for the student of its waters and shores. To the admirer of natural scenery it offers some of the most sublime and picturesque coast-line and water expanse to be found in either hemisphere. To the disciple of history and exploration it has been the historic highway and haunt of voyageur and explorer from Radisson to Henry. To the geologist and mineralogist it is a field of perhaps the most wonderful deposits of silver and copper ore known to the modern world, while its iron and other mines are world-famed. But by far its greatest importance to the true student is because of its prehistoric remains of the ancient civilization which, at a remote period, peopled its shores and sailed its waters. The traveller who enters the lake from the river at its southern end—either in the primitive canoe or in the 20th century Clyde-built ocean greyhound—cannot but be filled with awe at the grandeur, loveliness and vastness of its mighty waters and rugged shores. Here, sailing across the lake, land is lost sight of, and one experiences the feeling of being abroad on the ocean; save that the watery waste lacks the briny tang, and is fresh and sweet to the taste. Out here Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner could never have experienced one of the most awful miseries common to the shipwrecked sailor—that of thirst. But nowhere in all of earth’s oceans could he get a truer conception of terror-compelling storm and tempest, with pounding surf on bleak, inhospitable, rock-bound coasts, than on the lonely bosom of Lake Superior. There are coasts of this lake which are more like the rugged and majestic coasts of Northern Ireland and Western Scotland than any other part of the world. This whole region is one of a sublimity and mystery born of its vast loneliness, its associations with the remote past, and the prehistoric life on its shores. Lake Superior has several names, the first French name was Bourbon, and it had two Indian names, Gitchegami and Missisagiegon. It lies just south of the watershed dividing the streams of the Hudson’s Bay from those of the Gulf of Mexico. It forms an oblong basin five hundred and forty miles long from east to west and is seventeen hundred miles in circumference, being the largest body of fresh water on the globe. What Nicolet was to the history of Lake Michigan, Radisson and Groseilliers were to the Lake Superior region. These hardy voyageurs were the pioneer explorers of that lake and its surrounding country. They are the two nameless explorers whose achievements are recorded in the Jesuit Relations for the year 1660. They went by way of the Ottawa River and Lake Nipissing. Radisson says “that they ascended the River of the Meadows, crossed the Lake of the Castors, and descended the River of the Sorcerers” to the first great lake (Huron). At the mouth of the French River they turned westward and were soon at Sault Ste. Marie. From there they went to Chequamegon Bay. Radisson gives a concise account of the places they passed, and among others speaks of the Grand Portal, of the Pictured Rocks; and on the shores at Chequamegon Bay they built a hut—the first building erected by white men on the shores of Lake Superior. [Illustration: GRAND PORTAL.] D’Avagour, one of the early French Governors of Canada in a dispatch to the home Government, said, “Beyond Huron is another called Lake Superior, the waters of which it is believed, flow into New Spain, and this according to general opinion, ought to be the centre of the country.” The region about Superior at an early date attracted those adventurous spirits interested in pioneer trade. Among them whom Champlain sent for this purpose among the Indians was Etienne Brasle, who returned from a three years’ trip in the interior in 1618, and reported the existence of Superior as “a great lake which by rapids discharged itself into Lake Huron.” Sagard, a French historian, writing in 1636, says, “There are mines of copper which might be made profitable if there were inhabitants, and workmen who would faithfully labor. That would be done if colonies were established. About eighty or one hundred leagues from the Hurons there is a mine of copper from which Truchemont Brusle showed me one ingot on his return from a voyage which he made to a neighboring nation.” In the “Voyages de la Nouv France,” by Champlain, published at Paris in 1632, there appeared a map on which was the first attempt to show the entrance to Lake Superior. With it is the statement, “Saut du Gaston nearly two leagues in width which falls into Mer. Douce (Lake Huron) coming from another very large lake, which, and the Mer. Douce, contain according to the report of the Indians, thirty days’ journey in canoes.” The rapids were first named Gaston, in honour of the young brother of the French King, Louis the Thirteenth. Passing shores of high country, ridges of hills, rocky islands, and jutting capes, the point where Lake Huron ends and the currents of the St. Mary connecting this lake with Superior begin, is reached. Here is the great or middle passage—which is over nine miles long and one-half mile broad on the average. The straits of Pelleton lie between the mainland and St. Joseph’s Island, which is low and marshy, while the mainland is a line of high, gloomy and threatening cliffs. The current here is strong and many islands intercept its flow. Through Lake George—eighteen miles across—the Nibish Channel and rapids are reached, after which the Strait or River of St. Mary is entered. This river, which is seventeen miles long, and over a mile wide, in places, is deep and broad and flows silently, between its banks. A few miles up the stream are the falls of St. Mary. In the early days of the century the fur-traders had depots here. In 1850 one traveller describes the St. Mary’s Falls as follows: “The rapids rush tumultuously in a white mass of eddying, billowy, foaming, surge, through a strait only half the usual breadth, and half a mile long, bordered on both sides by almost inaccessible swamps and dense woods, where the lowness of the banks has permitted a number of petty channels to form.” After leaving the St. Mary’s River and entering Lake Superior the scenery is superb. On one side to the north is Gros Cap and on the south, Point Iroquois. The latter is a lofty commanding promontory, several miles distant from Gros Cap. Gros Cap is equally impressive. Here shattered and cloven crags tower over three hundred feet above the beach; and in front is a vast, seemingly boundless stretch of lake, with one low island breaking its surface. A vast terraced hill on the south is Point Iroquois; and in the other direction a lofty wild and picturesque shoreland looms through the mists of distance. Superior has fewer coast indentations than Huron, and has not so many islands; but its coast scenery is grander, in some instances reaching the sublime; and the geological formation of its shores is unique in America. The hills of Gros Cap are a collection of knolls and crags of silicious porphyry piled in some places as high as seven hundred feet, and dipping into the lake in great ledges. Following the east coast of the lake, the most noted places are the two great Headlands, Marmoaze, forty-one miles from the river; and Gargantua, ninety-three miles distant. Between these are vast curved bays or inlets sweeping inland. Along here are the Maple Islands, and a dangerous coast at the stormy season; many vessels being driven on their reefs and ledges by the terrible gales which sweep on this inhospitable shore at the bleak season of the year when the lake region is fierce with icy storm. [Illustration: GRAND PALISADE.] The Winter Lakes. Out in a world of death, far to the northward lying, Under the sun and the moon, under the dusk and the day; Under the glimmer of stars and the purple of sunsets dying, Wan and waste and white, stretch the great lakes away. Never a bud of spring, never a laugh of summer, Never a dream of love, never a song of bird; But only the silence and white, the shores that grow chiller and dumber, Wherever the ice winds sob, and the griefs of winter are heard. Crags that are black and wet, out of the gray lake looming, Under the sunset’s flush and the pallid, faint glimmer of dawn; Shadowy, ghost-like shores, where midnight surfs are booming Thunders of wintry woe over the spaces wan. Lands that loom like spectres, whited regions of winter, Wastes of desolate woods, deserts of water and shore, A world of winter and death, within these regions who enter Lost to summer and life, go to return no more. Moons that glimmer above, waters that lie white under, Miles and miles of lake far out under the night, Foaming crests of waves, surfs that shoreward thunder, Shadowy shapes that flee, haunting the spaces white. Lonely hidden bays, moon-lit, ice-rimmed, winding, Fringed by forests and crags, haunted by shadowy shores; Hushed from the outward strife, where the mighty surf is grinding, Death and hate on the rocks, as sandward and landward it roars. The south-east arm of Batchewine Bay is lined with ridges of white sandstone and sand banks; and in the background is an amphitheatre of imposing hills ascending to over nine hundred feet high. At the end of this bay a large river flows down from the interior. Here is met one of those strange objects which we found in this region. It is a great square block of what is called pudding-stone, a sort of granite, which rests on four great granite boulders which act as pillars. This block is fully fifteen feet square and weighs nearly half a hundred tons. Point Marmoaze is very impressive. The shore for many miles in this vicinity is from ten to one hundred feet high. The rocks are pudding-stone, trap, granite and sandstone. The whole coast is virtually iron-bound or rock-bound by a huge titan wall, which is cored out in great and small arches which resemble entrances to old Norman keeps. In some places great square blocks of stone are piled on each other to a great height, like old-world towers, which rise in a gloomy grandeur; while from the lake tall narrow columns or needles of rock loom up like sentinels of old-time fortifications. The north cape of Marmoaze is a lofty bluff of headland, and stands out boldly against the landscape. [Illustration: Ojibway Indians Canoeing.] CHAPTER VIII. Lake Superior, Continued. Crags. Gaunt, huge, mis-shapen, ’neath the northern night, These wild lake crags loom black against the sky, While at their feet the restless waters sigh And beat and moan amid the fitful light. Here no life comes or takes its shadowy flight, No voice, save winds that shoreward faint and die; But ever through their weird rifts tow’ring high, The moon, with ray of gold, the lake doth smite. Men call them warrior-souls to adamant turned, Doomed through these thousand years that since have burned, To guard the prisoned souls that wander here; So, dead to hate and waste, the centuried storms, True to their trust, they lift their awful forms, And keep these passes bleak, these regions drear. Among the Ojibway nations there is a legend that the limestone crag-cliffs on the shores of the great American lakes are Indian warriors eternally fixed in stone by Nana Boza (Hiawatha) to keep guard over the spirits of bad Indians who are doomed to roam for ever these desolate wilds. Hoquart Bay, so called by the French explorers, is about eleven miles wide and on one side eight miles long. Its shores rise in steep gloomy hills, five hundred feet high. The Montreal River flows into the bay, entering a small inner cove surrounded by dark, rock walls. At the south end of the bay a cliff over five hundred feet high rises above a great plateau of white sand which is thirty feet high and half a mile long. Gargantua Point is reached after passing a sublime and rock-bound shore naked and rugged. This noted headland is dark and forbidding to the mariner. It rises in places to over eighty feet from the water. Here the cliffs are broken and of different heights, in places rising to one hundred feet, with small coves of black sand at their feet; and, in places, small cruel-looking ridges and sharp rocks jut out of the deep waters of the lake, making an ill-place for a drifting ship in a November storm. The most prominent object here is a rude pyramid sixty feet high of a dark hue, which rises out of the water. This remarkable pyramid has been from time immemorial worshipped by the Indians, who approach it with awe and reverence as an idol. It is said by travellers that this veneration has been caused by its odd shape, that of a perfect pyramid, its dark color, and the surrounding gloom of the vicinity. But this does not explain the mystery of its being regarded as sacred. Beyond Point Gargantua is the great Bay of Michipicoton, from twenty-five to twenty-seven miles in length. All this coast of Superior is lofty and sublime, with many vast headlands and towering hills rising in plateaus, one above the other. The cliffs of this bay are lofty; and there is one headland, Perquaqia, a vast cliff, four hundred feet high, stretching into the bay for the distance of a mile. The River Michipicoton, a fine broad stream, enters this bay in a vast sandy bottom. This river was the old road of the Hudson Bay Company to its forts on Hudson Bay. From Gargantua Head, the great Island of Michipicoton or Maurepas is seen about twenty-five miles to the west. It is about eighteen miles long, and has several ranges of mountains reaching in several places to eight hundred feet above the lake. It is a vast mass of primitive rock. The Otter’s Head, near Gargantua, is a great slab of rock, about thirty feet high, standing upright on other rocks away from the lake on an eminence about one hundred and twenty feet above the water. Here, there are vast sand-beds, some over a hundred feet high; and in the vicinity are what are called the smaller written rocks and the basaltic Dykes, which are one of the most interesting objects on this coast to the geologist. They resemble vast ruined stair-cases, built in some bygone age by titans, and they cleave and ascend cliffs of all heights. As one writer says, “they are broken into transverse pillars or steps more or less perfect. They are the best road up the hills.” Indeed they are a vast stair-case. Close to the Written Rocks a height, eight hundred feet in altitude, is ascended by such steps. The Written Rocks are about six or seven miles west of the Black River. They are among a group of islands, which are near a vast headland of a bright red color. At the west end of these rocks there is a fine drawing of an Indian hunter firing at two animals. It is ninety-five miles from Cape Verd to Fort William, and in this coast-line are three great bays or inlets: Nipegon, Black Bay and Thunder Bay. Nipegon is a splendid sheet of water over sixteen miles across and over thirty deep. The entrance to this bay is by the straits between lofty islands and cliffs fifteen hundred feet from base to summit, ragged with shattered rocks or clad with verdure. At the mouth of the Nipegon River is the famous Red Rock, which is one of the places regarded as sacred to the Manitou, and is carved with old hieroglyphics or ancient writings. From this rock the Indian peace-pipe, or calumet was made, and all over the continent these pipes are to be found in the graves or ruins of the ancient peoples. Thunder Bay, a vast expanse of deep water, twenty miles across, is surrounded by a great amphitheatre of rugged hills and cliffs, and guarded at its entrance by Thunder Cape. The sound of the steamship’s siren leaps across and re-echoes from wall to wall of this vast bay. But the voice of a thunderstorm in this region seems to shake the cliffs and jar the air as from an earthquake. It is truly the voice of Nana Bozo, the Great Spirit, whose image lies prone on its back in gigantic proportions along the titan cliff. Thus this magnificent mountain has received its name of Thunder Cape. This famous cape is one of the greatest and most impressive sights in the Western world. Guarding the entrance to Thunder Bay, it looms an immense mountain and cliff of basaltic rock thirteen hundred feet in height. Here is the flourishing lake port of Fort William, and, close by, another growing town, Port Arthur. The following geological description of Thunder Cape will be found interesting: On Thunder Cape, a cliff three miles long rises to a height of thirteen hundred and fifty feet above the water and forms the most conspicuous headland on Lake Superior. The upper part of this cliff is composed of the columnar trappe of the crowning overflow. It is of a dark color and crystaline. The coarsely grained varieties prevail towards the summit, and those of a finer texture near the contact with the underlying strata. This trappe rock is composed of grayish and greenish feldspar and hyperstine, with a little hornblende and magnetic iron. The argillaceous sandstone beds, which underlie the greater part of the trap in the cliff, are almost horizontal; but still their surface appears to have been divided or disturbed before the trap was laid upon it. The light gray salomitic sandstone sweeps round from the shore of Lake Superior, on the eastern part of what is called “Woods Location,” to a point on the south-west side of Thunder Bay, about six miles from Thunder Cape, from which they continue north-eastward, forming a conspicuous cliff close to the shore of the bay all the way to its extremity and beyond it to Silver Lake. It is known when the first discovery of gold was made by a white man; but the date of the first discovery of silver is uncertain. There are many evidences of prehistoric mining at different places along the north shore of Superior. In 1845 Colonel Price mined on Spar Island and at Price’s Bay on the mainland. Here copper and silver were found. In 1846 the Montreal Mining Company located large tracts of mining lands on the north shore. In 1865 the McKellars of Fort William discovered the Black Bay Lode, carrying some gold and silver. In 1866 Peter McKellar discovered native silver in the Thunder Bay Mine. The next year the Shunish Mine was discovered. In 1868 the Montreal Mining Company sent out Thomas McFarlane, who discovered silver on Jarvis Island, and a month or two later the famous mine, Silver Islet, an island owned by the same company, was discovered by Mr. Morgan of McFarlane’s party. Silver Islet was a small rock about seventy-five feet long by forty feet wide in its broadest place, rising out of Lake Superior to the height of eight feet, and lying about half a mile from the main shore; yet up to 1886 it had produced in quantity the richest silver ore the modern world has ever seen; and a greater value in bullion from the amount of vein-stone broken than any known silver mine. This famous discovery was followed by that of McCallers Island in 1869, and during the year Thompson’s Island was located. Then followed the discovery of Silver Harbour Mine, the 3 A Mine, the Cornish Mine in 1870. Then followed many discoveries at McKellar’s Point, or Little Gull Lake, Arrow Lake, and in the township of McIntyre, McGregor, McTavish, Neebing and Paipoonge, the Slate River. Silver was also found on Lambert Island in Thunder Bay and on the shore east of Port Arthur, and within the limits of the town of Port Arthur. The gold excitement began in the winter of 1870-1871 by the discovery of Jackfish Lake Mine, which was the first free gold discovery on the north shore of the lake. In 1872 operations were commenced in the gold region, but stopped by the Indians until a treaty was made with them. The difficulty of transport, however, delayed any real work. In 1882 a new gold fever brought interest to the region; and many other mines were discovered or revealed by the Indians. It was generally known in the different mining districts of the north-west that the Indians had a superstitious objection to revealing the location of mines. One Indian, Wee Saw, refused to go within twenty miles of the Rabbit Mountain Mine to point it out, though he gave such a perfect description of it, that it enabled a friend of his, a white trapper, to find it readily. It is said that the Indian has been taught by his race traditions that these deposits of gold and silver are of a sacred character, and that the making known of them would cause misfortune or early death. The Indians have been known to have in their possession richer specimens of gold than any obtained by white men in the district. The Island of Yellow Sands is a tradition of the Indians. It is said to exist somewhere in Lake Superior. All the travellers from the earliest days mention its existence. Schoolcraft gives it in his list of actual islands in that lake, though he speaks of it as a traditional place. The Indians say that this island really exists, but that it is protected by a great spirit or demon, who guards it by a magic, something like that described in the Nibelungenlied. They claim that its shores are covered with a heavy shining sand which is pure gold; but that the guardian spirit of the island will not allow any of it to be disturbed by human hand. To protect this wonderful treasure he has gathered on the island a large number of eagles, hawks and other birds of prey, who by their clamor give warning of hostile approach, and drive away the invader. There also rise from the great deeps of the lake vast hideous serpents which coil their sinuous forms on the shining sands and hiss defiance and sinister challenge to the invader who may be daring enough to face their horrible phalanx. It is said that a party of Indians were once driven by stress of weather on to this island, and attracted by the treasure, loaded their canoes with a large quantity of the heavy glittering sand; but just as they were putting off from land a shadowy monster appeared and in terrible accents commanded them to replace what they had taken; and that in a state of great terror at this genie or cyclops of the lake island, they were glad to escape from the enchanted place empty-handed, and no one of their people had dared to return to it since. Enter not that sacred place, Ye of outer, alien race, Ravish not that haunted shore Of its god-like, golden store:— Horrid creatures, birds unclean, Hover o’er its magic sheen, Hideous serpents; round on round, Guard that weird enchanted ground, Precincts of an earlier prime, When, in a golden clime, Sons of God did dwell on earth, Ere foul greed and need had birth, And panther lusts; and evil’s sway, Had made the human heart their prey. Duluth, the most remote of the lake ports and a great American city, was founded by the famous French explorer of that name. It is reached by steamer from Port Arthur. CHAPTER IX. Lake Superior, Concluded. In connection with the great loss of life and property by marine disaster on the lakes, it is well to remember that much of this is owing to certain local conditions which cannot be overcome. While the lakes are exposed to gales, squalls and fierce tempests, often as violent as those on the ocean, there is not sufficient sea-room for a vessel, scudding before the weather, to keep out in the open. If the gale lasts long the vessel will soon reach shore, where she will be driven and dashed to pieces, or ground upon the rocks. The lakes are also quite narrow and thickly studded with dangerous reefs and rocky islands or hidden ledges; so that it is very difficult for a vessel to lie to, long, without drifting on one or the other, and meeting disaster. Lake Superior is the most formidable to navigators and the most ocean-like of all the great lakes. Here is an immense inland sea stretching for nearly four hundred miles in length and over one hundred and twenty-five in breadth. Charlevoix, the explorer, states that when a storm is about to rise on Lake Superior, “. . . At first you perceive a gentle murmuring on the surface of the water, which lasts the whole day without increasing in any sensible manner; the day after the lake is covered with pretty large waves, but without breaking all that day, so that you may proceed without fear, and even make good way if the wind is favorable; but on the third day, when you are least thinking of it, the lake becomes all on fire, the ocean in its greatest rage is not more tost; in which case you must take care to be near shelter in order to save yourself.” A westerly gale on Lake Superior lasting more than one day will raise the water twenty or thirty feet at Gargantua, Michipicoton, or Otter’s Head, places exposed to the accumulated force of waves travelling over two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles of unobstructed and deep water. At Fort Michipicoton there are, on the lake shore, several shelves rising to the above height, and of pure, loose, naked sand, which are the result of winter storms. There is also a tidal motion on this great lake, which is said to be caused not only by the winds, but also by variations in atmospheric pressure which are to a certain degree local in their character and cause one part of the lake to rise while another is depressed. Professor Agassis verifies this in his narration, when he says of an island off Nepigon Bay: “We breakfasted on a barren island, some logs of a foot or more in diameter had been thrown to the distance of fully one hundred and fifty yards from the water’s edge and thirty or forty feet above its level.” These wilds and rugged coasts are gradually being opened up into farm lands, at least where the soil is kindly. But the greater part of this region is better known to the miner and geologist for its remarkable silver, copper and other mines, which are being slowly developed. In remote ages about these vast waters there dwelt a mysterious people who were highly skilled in the arts of civilization. It is thought by some scholars that they came up the Mississippi from the south. The chief witnesses to their existence are the many old mine-workings, and what have been called the ancient gardens of Michigan. That these ancient peoples dwelt about the shores of Superior, and worked the mines and were possessed of the long-since sought-for secret of hardening copper is evinced by the many old abandoned mines along the shores inland and upon some of the islands. The mines on the Isle Royale are among the most extensive and ancient; but west of the Keeneenaw Peninsula the prehistoric workings extend for miles. In many cases they comprise deep and wide trenches, thirty to fifty feet deep, long since filled with debris of the series of forests which, through the ages, have successively flourished and fallen above their yawning pits. In one of these mines there was found a detached mass of copper weighing upwards of six tons, resting upon an artificial cradle of black oak partially preserved by immersion in the water with which the trenches had been filled. There is also evidence that along these shores were established ancient factories where knives, spears, daggers and other weapons as well as axes, were manufactured out of the hardened native copper, while in some cases the copper implements were inlaid with silver. Indeed, there was a period in the remote past when the shores of Lake Superior rang with the echoes of industrial toil, developed by an ancient, but now long extinct, population. Moreover, there is sufficient proof that this industry was an extensive one throughout the surrounding region. It has even been suggested that some of the copper was shipped down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and thence to Europe, where it was manufactured into the bronze swords and shields since dug up in the bogs of Ireland and Norway. The discovery near Prescott on the Upper St. Lawrence of a lot of copper knives of this description, some of them inlaid with silver, buried in a grave with some gigantic skeletons, points to the possibility that the St. Lawrence, rather than the Mississippi, was the gate outward to Europe of this long lost commerce of a bronze age. It has also been thought possible that the vast gardens at one time cultivated in Michigan were planted for the purpose of feeding the vast numbers of slaves or other toilers who were employed in these mines. If the late Doctor John Campbell, the noted Canadian archaeologist, who contributed several able papers on the subject to the Royal Society of Canada, is correct in his conclusions, there was a great migration at a remote period, of Asiatics from the Orient, who pressed across the continent until they penetrated the region of Ohio and Michigan and the shores of the Great Lakes; and he claims to have discovered evidence of the practice of Buddhism in that vicinity. He also claims that they were of the ancient Turanian stock and used that language. Dr. Campbell has been sneered at for his conclusions in quarters where much is made of the speculations of Dr. Sayce and his Hittite translations. We hear over-much of a spurious Canadianism; but here is a great field for a true Canadian Archaeological Society, which is being grossly neglected. The late Professor Daniel Wilson, in his Prehistoric Man, also deals with these prehistoric lake miners, and connects them, and no doubt correctly, with the mound-builders. I have a conviction that not enough interest has been taken in this very important and interesting subject; and that the American archaeological society, which is spending so much money and time on European and Asiatic explorations, while at our own doors there are mysteries unexplained, should turn its serious attention to this subject ere it be too late. There is strong evidence not only to show that there was an extensive ancient civilization in the northern lake region, but that this civilization had continued in a degenerated form among many of the Indian tribes down to the period of the earliest European explorers. We see proof of this in the relations of nearly all the explorers themselves. Radisson, Carver, and Henry have all given hints of a mystery which they only touched in their passing; and especially in the vicinity of Lake Superior was this evident remains of an old Oriental culture, intellect and imagination still existent. Judging by their accounts, they experienced what was the decadent remains of Eastern occult practise and power, as evinced in their descriptions of the worship of serpents and the offering of incense to them; and the strange and weird ceremony of the consulting of the oracle so similar to that practised in ancient Greece. These accounts, together with the existence of stone idols and sacred islands and other forbidden spots, all point to a state of civilization in the lake region at that period not since fully appreciated. To this may be added the hints given of the fields, towns, gardens, and even orchards of the aborigines. Hunter, in his sites of Huron villages, mentions the large cornfields and the wild plum groves; the method of planting corn was in large hillocks. “Below one of the villages,” he says, “is what the Canadians call the Plum Garden, from its having been cleared and planted with these trees.” Modern materialism in the shape of mere individual greed for place, power and wealth, has unduly dwarfed the importance of the past and its influence on the future, and has exaggerated and almost deified the present. Such a false conception of life is fraught with great danger to the very existence of the race. If our civilization is to last, society must be once more imbued with the idea that man is of divine origin and that man’s salvation is in the whole race, and not in the single generation, or individual. For this purpose a correct knowledge of the past, through studies now neglected and sneered at, must be obtained in the school, church and university. To do this, such studies must be regarded as necessary sciences, and even more important than many so-called nature-studies now filling our school curriculums. In this connection it seems strange that, in a country like Canada, having such remarkable remains of human antiquity, this subject should be ignored, while the literature of the lower species is almost raised to a cult. This atmosphere of a vanished people lends a glamor and mystery to this otherwise sublime and romantic region of wave and shore, which heightens its interest in the mind of the traveller who visits these wilds or sails these lonely waters. To return to the natural beauties of Lake Superior, one is impressed more and more with the lonely grandeur of this vast reservoir of fresh water, with its marine area of thirty-two thousand square miles. It is here, alone among all the lakes, that there is witnessed that wild, rugged aspect of coast, and lake-scenery, which belongs peculiarly to this lake alone. Along its northern and Western shores, lofty cliffs and rock-piled headlands loom in titan grandeur from their silent wilds of unbroken forest, save where the pioneer has made his presence felt in the wasteful destruction of nature’s noblest resources. On its southern shores also one meets a wild picturesque beauty of headland and sand-dune, broken by desolate marshes and haunted opens of ever-moving waters. Beyond the Grand Sable the coast trends rapidly to the southward, until it reaches the most southerly point of the lake in the bay behind Grand Island. In approaching this fine natural harbour from the east, a range of lonely rock-cliffs extends with varying character and elevation for upwards of ten miles, and rises in some places to a height of fully two hundred feet. It is here that those dark gloomy archways in the surface of the rocks have given the name of “Les Portails,” so-called by the French voyageurs, to a portion of these sublime cliffs of massive sandstone which fringe this coast with their forbidding maritime wall. These Pictured Rocks, which have been already described, are situated between the region of the copper mines and what is called “the ancient Portage,” and give to this portion of the lake a suggestion as of vast ruins and the memory of a buried and mysterious past to which these gigantic cliffs and arched caverns are the enchanted walls and gateways. Farther north, over the stupendous waste of waters, we again approach Thunder Bay and its majestic cape. Here at the remote doorways to that farther west, let us take our leave of the mystical, beauty-haunted and eld-haunted upper lake region, with the following lines: To the Lakes. You lie in moon-white splendor Beneath the northern sky; Your voices soft and tender, In dream-worlds fade and die, In whispering beaches, haunted bays and capes, Where mists of dawn and midnight, Drift past in spectral shapes. Beside your far north beaches, Comes, late, the quickening Spring;— With soft, voluptuous speeches, The Summer, lingering, Fans, with hot winds, your breasts so still and wide, Where June, with trancèd silence, Drifts over shore and tide. Here the white Winter’s fingers Tip with dull fires the dawn; Where the pale morning lingers By stretches, bleak and wan; Kindling the iced capes with heatless glow, That renders cold and colder Lone waters, rocks and snow. Here in the glad September, When all the woods are red And gold, and hearts remember The gone days that are dead; And all the world is mantled in a haze; And the wind, a mad musician, Melodious makes the days. And the nights are still, and slumber Holds all the frosty ground; And the pale stars whose number In God’s great books are found, Gird with pale flames the spangled, frosty sky; By white, moon-curvèd beaches, The haunted hours go by. [Illustration: Queen Victoria Rock, Muskoka.] CHAPTER X. Muskoka and Other Lakes—Highlands of Ontario. With golden, spiced dreams, blows in the dawn About the cool, blue bosom of the lake; Far over wave and shore, wild voices wake The watery curves and windy reeds upon, Where the young glory of the day dreams on; And wingéd creatures haunts of sleep forsake, And dreams and silence their dim ways betake Round the gray edge where lidded night hath gone. Directly north of Toronto, and lying between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River, is a wonderful tract of country, the northern part of which has lately been opened up. This district is a vast net-work of streams and lakes, which are well appreciated by the sportsman and lover of natural beauty. This delightful area contains two large lakes, and three noted groups of lakes. The large lake at the south is Simcoe, which is connected by the Severn River with Georgian Bay. The large lake on the north is Nipissing, which is also connected with Georgian Bay by means of the French River, which flows into the extreme north-west corner of that vast body of water. The three large groups of lakes are the Kawartha Lakes, the Lake of Bays group, and the famous waters of the Muskoka. Though our press and people have a vulgar habit of sneering at our old-world cousins for knowing so little of this often falsely advertised Canada of ours, it is a glaring fact that no people in the world except the Americans are so crudely local, and know so little of their own most boasted of country, as we Canadians. We hear much of the West, of which we of the east really know less than do the English who travel. But of our own Province of Ontario, we as a people, who dwell in it and are supposed to vote for or against its best interests, know absurdly little. We are told over and over again by our writers, who chase the fancied rainbow of a false and superficial popularity and fame, who bow the knee to the political god of the hour, that our national greatness lies in Quebec and the West;—that all beauty, all history, all romance are found in these two extremes of Stadacona and the Klondyke. [Illustration: Bala Falls, Muskoka.] But what prophet has arisen to break new ground, to reveal the real truth, namely, that it is not in East or West, important as they may be, that the greatest interest in Canada shall ultimately lie; but rather in her vast and numerous inland lakes and streams, and the wonderful, historic and prehistoric region which borders on and girds their waters; and the day will come, when these inland northern regions will open up their hidden and ignored treasures of wealth in metal and precious stones, with their mystery of a buried antiquity which will rival the remote parts of the Eastern and Oriental world. Lake Simcoe, the most southerly of this most interesting group, received its name from our first great Governor and founder of old Upper Canada. It borders on the Counties of Simcoe, Victoria, Ontario and York, of the latter of which it forms the northern boundary. Kempenfeldt and Cook’s Bays on its south side, are beautiful and popular sheets of water. They were both named after famous navigators. Governor Simcoe named the lake after his father, a noted naval officer, and Cook’s Bay after the famed Captain Cook, with whom his father sailed in the Pembroke against Quebec in 1759. Kempenfeldt Bay received its name from the great naval hero, Admiral Kempenfeldt, who went down with his whole crew of eight hundred men in the Royal George off Spithead, and taught the Britons how British tars could die. Stumbling on the brink Of sudden opportunity; he chose The only noble, god-like, splendid way; And made his exit, as earth’s great have gone, By that vast doorway, looking out on death. At Allandale on the railway journey north to Collingwood is first seen the beautiful curved beaches of Kempenfeldt Bay. Here, the railways branch off, one to Collingwood, one to Penetanguishene, and the third to the beautiful Muskoka country. The islands in Simcoe are, Snake or Serpent near Jackson’s Point, and Georgina on the south shore, Thorah on the west, and Strawberry on the north near Orillia. Here Simcoe connects with Lake Couchiching, a lovely little lake, and thence, by Sparrow Lake and the Severn River, with Honey Harbour on Georgian Bay. [Illustration: Couchiching Park, Orillia.] The country on the shores of Lake Simcoe is very beautiful, having been a long time cultivated, and resembling some parts of England. Many scions of old English, Irish and Scottish families have settled here, and have beautified the rural districts and given an appearance of old-world culture to the locality. Directly north of Lake Simcoe, along the western shore of Couchiching, the lake of many winds, by rail, Gravenhurst is reached at the most southerly point of the famous Muskoka Lake region. Here, a perfect net-work of beautiful sheets of inland water is to be found. The principal lakes or portions of lakes, for they are all united, are Joseph, Rosseau, and Muskoka. The latter is the largest, and gives its name to the region. This lake is large and oblong and filled with islands, and deeply indented with bays and rugged capes and headlands. This picturesque lake-country is situated in what are called the Highlands of Ontario, and its waters are hundreds of feet above the level of Superior. It is the great water-reservoir from which flow the Ottawa, Muskoka, Petewawa, French and other streams into the St. Lawrence and Georgian Bay. The name Muskoka, which has been given to the whole region, was that of a famous Huron Chief, Musaquado, or Mesa Ohkee, of the Mississaugas. This chief used this country as a hunting-ground or deer forest, as it would be called in Scotland; and it so acquired his name. This district is a vast stretch of country mostly rock covered with forest, and dotted over with hundreds of picturesque lakes of all shapes, sizes and depths, from miles wide to mere ponds. It is many hundreds of square miles in extent; and bears the same natural characteristics as the great Laurentian range of which it forms a part. It is rich in a magnificent forest of pines, hemlocks, maples, and balsams, all of splendid growth. Its fertile forest life, on its stratum of almost nude rock, is a marvel to the naturalist. Here are to be found those ancient primeval;— Walls of green where the wind and the sunlight stir, Rippling windows of light where the sun looks through, And spaces of day that widen and blue beyond Out to the haze-rimmed, purpled edge of the world;— Aisles, whose pavements are etched with ghosts of moving Leaves, and phantom branches raftered above; Wind-swayed arches rocking under the blue, Breathing under the dim, stirred peace of the world. Here, to-day, in this seemingly wild region of water and verdure-clad rocks, are some of the most delightful and healthful summer resorts and retreats on the American continent. All through the vast maze of their islands and bays and capes, and curved shores, are to be found secluded cottages, or summer hotels in some instances reaching the palatial in their appearance, equipment and power of entertaining their guests. As a rest-resort, especially for tired nerves and feeble lungs, Muskoka has no rival anywhere. Wealthy Americans and tourists from the old-world, as well as many of our own people, make this delightful region their summer haunt year after year. At the present time there is a large fleet of steamers of all sizes, plying on those secluded northern waters, and they carry their freight of rest and pleasure-seekers to the most remote portions of this dream-like, seemingly endless, maze of summer lakes. From Muskoka Wharf to Point Carling at the other end of the lake is twenty-one miles. Here Lake Rosseau is entered; and twelve miles across, away north, is the Port of Rosseau. Lake Joseph is next entered from the southern end of Rosseau, and its extreme end is forty-five miles from Muskoka Wharf. The trip by steamer is sinuous among the curving channels, and across wide sweeps of water, at times fully six miles in extent. Myriads of beautiful rivers feed these lakes; and their waters, like those of the lakes, are unusually limpid and clear. The most noted of these rivers are Shadow River, at the head of Lake Rosseau, and famous for its wonderful shadow effects, so clear and transparent are its waters; the Dee; Skeleton River; Moon River; Magnetawan; Muskoka and Muskosh Rivers. In these, its rivers, as well as in its lakes, lies the great beauty and attraction of the Muskoka region. Many of them, especially the Magnetawan, afford splendid possibilities for the expert canoeist. This river drains a surface of fully four thousand square miles. Here is the ideal region for rod, gun and paddle up the long, rugged reaches of these northern rivers. A Northern River. Where northern forests, dusk and dim, Loom dark the arctic skies along; ’Mid wellheads of the world abrim, My swift tides sparkle into song. By craggy waste, by haunted verge, With woodland high on woodland piled, Wherein rude Autumn’s iron surge Thundered afar, and smote the wild; By regions where the night wind grieves Down sunsets red and ruinous; ’Mid crocus dawns and purpling eves, And midnights lorn and luminous;— My winding waters swell their tides, Rocked ’mid the forest’s rude unrest; Where brooks, down gleaming mountain sides, Sing, bird-like, brimming to my breast. By craggy scarp and sheering rock My shining music curves and cools; Then leaps, with lightning roar and shock, Into a hundred thunder-pools. In a country of such magnificent woods and waters the shy creatures of nature are found in abundance. The antlered monarch of the northern forest, at dawn or mid-day passing by some reedy bank or silent pool, dogged from his birth by his haunting enemy of the wild or by human huntsman, sniffs the keen or resinous air with instinctive fear. Like to some great gnarled, upreared root he stands; all the majesty and aloofness of the primeval nature in his tawny flanks, crown of antlers and faun-like startled eyes; the very incarnate spirit, as it were, of the bole and twig, and leaf and branchy fronds, and shine and air and wind and water, all of the wild and illusive universe of nature about him. [Illustration: Sunset on Gull Lake, Muskoka.] Haunted monarch of these drear Wide palaces of leafy gleams, Swift of nostril, hoof and ear; Who through a thousand years of fear, Hath fled the wolf-pack in his dreams. Such a region is necessarily a land of birds. On its shores in the rocks and woods, chickadees, nuthatches, brown creepers, redstarts, wood peckers, kingfishers and nighthawks are among the shy denizens of these remote haunts. The song of the hermit-thrush is heard;— By some grave gateway, large, of evening dream, When all the sunset world seems ages old In sad romance and achings of dead wrong; And all the beauty of life is poignant gold In the hermit-thrush’s song. Here by some lonesome marshy lake, Is heard the loon’s lone cry. In this region the disciple of Isaac Walton can, if he is patient and skillful, catch all manner of fish, from the salmon trout of the lakes and black bass, to the speckled trout of the many rivers and streams. By their shores, yellow, black and white warblers are heard and seen; and the whip-poor-will utters at evening its plaintive note; while game, such as partridge and duck, haunt the wood-roads and the reedy shores; while, on still early autumn days, are seen and heard in the hazy, marshy places, the meditative crane and lonesome loon. Among the best fishing waters are Portage Lake, Clear Lake, Silver and Crane Lakes, Six-mile and Leonard and Brandy Lakes; all of these are well known as haunts of the finny tribe; and are accessible to the resolute fisherman. These are only a few of the many lakes that are noted for their fish. The Magnetawan is a beautiful stream. It contains the famous Burke’s Falls. Continuing up this river, Lake Ahmic, one of the loveliest waters of the Muskoka region, is reached. It is twelve miles long. From here on by canoe up this noted river the traveller comes to Lake Wa-wa-kesh; and, fifty miles farther on, to Georgian Bay. Directly east of the Muskoka region, and north of the Haliburton region, another delightful group of smaller lakes is the noted Lake of Bays, and its sister lakes, Vernon, Fairy Lake and Mary’s Lake; all connected, and forming an interesting and picturesque channel of waterways and beautiful shore line, which have gained for this, their region, the name of the Killarney of Ontario. These lakes are the source of the Muskoka River; and their shores were formerly a magnificent pine forest. Mary Lake is one of the loveliest of the group; it is full of islands, which are a resort of berry-pickers, campers and others. Fairy Lake and Peninsula Lake are reached by a long channel of the river; and by falls, rapids and portages, the canoeist makes a winding journey of many miles of picturesque scenery and delightful experience, from Port Sydney to Baysville at the extreme south of the Lake of Bays. Another remarkable group of lakes, in the more southerly portion of Ontario, are the Kawartha Lakes of the Counties of Victoria and Peterborough. The principal sheets of water in this group are Lakes Balsam, Cameron, Long, Sturgeon, Pigeon, Chemong, Buckthorn, Clear and Stoney. They are all connected by winding and narrow channels, and form a continuous water-way across a wide extent of country. These lakes have been famous as a resort for sportsmen. Rice Lake, still further to the south, is also a well-known haunt of duck-hunters and canoeists. Far to the north of this vast region, and connected by the French River with Georgian Bay, is Lake Nipissing, the centre link of the proposed canal between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. It was along this route that Champlain, and other noted early explorers, reached the Upper Lake region. Away, further north again, and forming part of the boundary between Ontario and Quebec, is the now noted Lake Temiskaming; and south-west in Ontario, its remarkable sister, Lake Temagami. Temiskaming is a long narrow lake stretching almost completely north and south for fully sixty miles, widening at its northerly end and containing two large islands, Mann and Moose. The Montreal River, which flows down from the north-western wilds, enters its waters near its southern end, where it resembles more a very wide river. Temagami is like an immense collection of lakes spread out from a common centre in vast arms. There is the South Arm, the South-west Arm, the North-east Arm, the North Arm, the North-west Arm, and numerous bays, which with myriads of small sister lakes, spread over what is called the Temagami Forest Reserve. All this region is a vast reserve of white and red pine and other valuable timber, and is accessible only to the miner, lumberman and adventurous hunter and explorer, who in a spirit of unrest or longing for the wilderness or what of treasure it contains, penetrate its primitive and virgin fastnesses. [Illustration: [Rear Endpaper]] TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. Some illustrations were moved to facilitate page layout. [The end of _The Beauty, History, Romance and Mystery of the Canadian Lake Region_, by William Wilfred Campbell.]