America Volume II Part 6

The most considerable affluent of Lake Superior upon its northern coast is the Nepigon River, coming grandly down cascades and rapids, bringing the waters of Lake Nepigon, an elliptical lake among the mountains to the northward covering about four thousand square miles, bounded by high cliffs, and elevated over eight hundred feet. It is studded with islands, has very deep waters, and receives various streams from the remote northern wilderness. Upon the northwestern sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior are gigantic cliffs, surrounding Thunder Bay, a deep indentation divided from Black Bay by the great projecting promontory of Thunder Cape, rising nearly fourteen hundred feet in grand columns of basalt, the summit containing the crater of an extinct volcano. Across from it is McKay Mountain, another basaltic Gibraltar, rising twelve hundred feet from the almost level plain bordering the bay. Pic Island is between them, guarding the entrance.

The pretty Kaministiquia River flows through rich prairie lands down to Thunder Bay, and here is the chief Canadian town on the lake, Port Arthur. Thirty miles up this river is the famous Kakabika Falls, where the rocks are cleft so that the stream tumbles into a chasm one hundred and thirty feet deep, and then boils along with rapid current for nearly a half-mile through the fissure, the sides towering perpendicularly, and in some places even overhanging their bases. Upon this river was for many years the well-known Hudson Bay Company's fur-trading station of Fort William, which now has grain elevators, and is a suburb of the spreading settlement of Port Arthur. This was the beginning of the great portage from Lake Superior over to the Hudson Bay waters at Fort Garry, on the Red River in Manitoba, now Winnipeg, the portage being the present route of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

SAULT SAINTE MARIE TO DULUTH.

The southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior is mostly composed of lowlands, covered with sand, glacial deposits and clays, which came from the lake during a former stage of much higher water, when it extended many miles south of the present boundary. These lands, while not well adapted to agriculture, contain rich deposits of copper, iron and other metals and valuable red sandstones. Around the rapids and ca.n.a.ls at the outlet has gradually grown the town of Sault Sainte Marie, familiarly known as the "Soo," having ten thousand people, and developing important manufactures from the admirable water-power of the rapids, which is also utilized for electrical purposes. An international bridge brings a branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway over from Canada, on its way to Minneapolis and St. Paul, with connections southward to Chicago, and there is also the military post of Fort Brady. Stately processions of vessels constantly move through the ca.n.a.ls, being locked up or down when the navigation season is open, and making this a very animated place, over fifteen thousand ships pa.s.sing in the seven months when the ca.n.a.ls are free from ice.

The tonnage is the greatest using any system of ca.n.a.ls in the world, far exceeding Suez, and the recent improvements enable vessels of twenty-one feet draft to go through the new locks. Both Governments have expended millions upon these important public works, which are chiefly employed for the transport of grain, flour, coal, iron-ores and copper. The favorite sports at the "Soo" are catching white fish and "shooting the rapids" in canoes guided by the Indians, who are very skillful.

About one hundred miles westward from the "Soo," on the southern lake sh.o.r.e, there rise cliffs of the red and other sandstones formed by the edges of nearly horizontal strata coming out at the border of the lake. These are the noted Pictured Rocks, rising three hundred feet, extending for a distance of about five miles, and worn by frost and storm into fantastic and romantic forms, displaying vivid hues--red, blue, yellow, green, brown and gray--as they have been stained by the oozing waters carrying the pigments. At intervals, cascades fall over the rocks. One cliff, called the Sail Rock, is like a sloop in full sail, and there are various castles and chapels, and an elaborate Grand Portal. In the country around is laid much of the scene of _Hiawatha_, and at the little lake port of Munising, nearby, was the site of the wigwam of the old woman, Nokomis,

"On the sh.o.r.es of Gitchee Gumee, Of the shining Big-Sea-Water."

To the westward is the region of iron-ores, and here is Marquette, named for the great Jesuit missionary Father Marquette, who was the first founder of mission settlements in this region, and died in 1675 near the mouth of Marquette River. This town of fifteen thousand people is on Iron Bay, and is the chief port of the Marquette, Menominee and Ishpeming mines. Farther to the westward the great Keweenaw Peninsula projects, the name meaning in the Indian dialect the "canoe portage." At its base, the Portage Lake almost separates it from the mainland, and a short portage to the westward formerly carried the canoes over the narrow isthmus. A ca.n.a.l now enables the lake shipping to pa.s.s through without making the long detour around the outer end of the peninsula. Upon this rocky peninsula are the great copper-mines of Michigan, including the Quincy, Tamarack, Osceola, Franklin, Atlantic, and the Calumet and Hecla. The latter is the world's leading Copper Company, making over $4,000,000 estimated annual profit, employing five thousand men, and having the deepest shaft in existence, the Red Jacket, which has been sunk forty-nine hundred feet. Houghton, on the southern sh.o.r.e of Portage Lake, is the leading town of the copper district. To the southwestward and in the western part of the Upper Michigan Peninsula is Lake Gogebic, elevated thirteen hundred feet, in another prolific iron-ore district, the Gogebic range, which produces Bessemer ores, and has its shipping port across the Wisconsin boundary at Ashland, another busy town of fifteen thousand people at the head of Chequamegon Bay. Out in front are the Apostle Islands, a picturesque group, and to the westward the head of Lake Superior gradually narrows in the Fond du Lac, or end of the lake, where are situated its leading ports, Superior City in Wisconsin and Duluth in Minnesota.

Here in the seventeenth century came the early French, and in 1680 a trading-post was established by Daniel du Lhut, afterwards becoming a Hudson Bay Company Station. The mouth of St. Louis River and its bay were naturally recognized as important points for trade, and when the Northern Pacific Railway was projected Superior City got its start.

The first railroad scheme failed, the panic of 1857 came, and the railway project was abandoned until after the Civil War; and then, when it was renewed, the terminus was located over on the other side of the river, the place being named Duluth, after the French trader.

While there has been great rivalry between them, and Duluth has outstripped Superior, yet the latter has an extensive trade and thirty thousand people. Duluth, the "Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as it has been ambitiously called, was originally projected on Minnesota Point, a scythe-shaped natural breakwater running out seven miles into the lake, which protects the harbor, but the town was subsequently built farther in. There were about seventy white people in the neighborhood in 1860, and in 1869 its present site was a forest, while the railroad, which had many set-backs, had only brought about three thousand people there in 1885. The completion of other railway connections in various directions, the discovery of iron deposits, and the recognition of its advantageous position for traffic, subsequently gave Duluth rapid growth, so that it now has eighty thousand people, and is the greatest port on the lake. It is finely situated, the harbor being s.p.a.cious and lined with docks and warehouses, and it has many substantial buildings. Back of the city a terrace rises some four hundred feet, an old sh.o.r.e line of Lake Superior when the water was at much higher level, and here is the Boulevard Drive, giving splendid views over the town and lake. The vast extent of wheat lands to the westward and the prolific iron-ore district to the northward give Duluth an enormous trade. Its railways lead up to the Messabi and Vermillion ranges, now the greatest producers of Lake Superior iron-ores, the red hemat.i.te, most of the output being controlled by John D. Rockefeller and his a.s.sociates. These mines yield the richest ores in the world, and have made some of the greatest fortunes in Duluth. Yet they were not discovered until 1891, and then the lands where they are generally went begging, because n.o.body would give the government price for them, $1.25 per acre. One forty-acre tract, then abandoned by the man who took it up because he did not think the pine wood on it was enough to warrant paying $50 for it, is now the Mountain Iron Mine, netting Mr. Rockefeller $375,000 annual profit, and his railroad bringing the ores out gets more than that sum for freights.

THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE.

The early French traders and explorers who came to the upper lakes naturally ascended their affluents, and in this way La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin and others crossed the portages beyond Lake Michigan to the tributaries of the Mississippi. They came to Green Bay on the west side of Lake Michigan, ascended the Fox River and crossed over to the Wisconsin River. Southward from the Upper Michigan Peninsula and westward of the lower peninsula of that State spreads the broad expanse of Lake Michigan, stretching from Mackinac and Green Bay down to Chicago. Its western sh.o.r.e is the State of Wisconsin, extending northward to Lake Superior. When the French explorers came along and floated down its chief river, an affluent of the Mississippi, the latter making the western boundary of the State, they found the Indian name of the stream to be a word which, according to the p.r.o.nunciation, they spelled in their early narratives "Ouisconsing" and "Misconsin,"

and it finally came out in the present form of Wisconsin, thus naming the State. The original meaning was the "wild, rushing red water,"

from the hue given by the pine and tamarack forests. La Salle coasted in his canoe all along the western sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan, from Green Bay down to Chicago, and crossed over to the Mississippi. The traders established various settlements on that sh.o.r.e which have grown into active cities, and the princ.i.p.al one, eighty-five miles north of Chicago, is Milwaukee, its name derived from the Indian Mannawahkie, meaning the "good land." A broad harbor, indented several miles from the lake, was the nucleus of the city, at the mouth of Milwaukee River, which receives two tributaries within the town, and thus adds to the facilities for dockage, while extensive breakwaters protect the harbor entrance from lake storms.

Milwaukee has three hundred and fifty thousand people, and is the growth mainly of the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is finely located, with undulating surface, the streets lined with trees, and the splendid development of the residential section making it almost like an extensive park, the foliage and garden s.p.a.ces are so extensive and attractive. Its population is largely German, and its breweries are famous, exporting their product all over the country. It has a grand Federal building, costing nearly $2,000,000, a Romanesque structure in granite, an elaborate Court-house of brown sandstone, a s.p.a.cious City Hall, a magnificent Public Library and Museum, and many attractive churches and other edifices. Juneau Park, on a bluff overlooking the lake, commemorates the first settler, Solomon Juneau, and contains his statue. Here, in compliment to the large Scandinavian population of Wisconsin, is also a statue of Leif Ericsen, who is said to have been in command of the first detachment of Nors.e.m.e.n who landed in New England in the eleventh century. The Forest Home Cemetery at the southwestern verge of the city is one of the most beautiful in the country. Milwaukee is familiarly called the "Cream City" from the light-colored brick made in the neighborhood, which so largely enter into the construction of its buildings. It has extensive grain elevators and flour mills and large manufacturing industries. To the westward, in a park of four hundred acres, is the National Soldiers'

Home, with accommodation for twenty-four hundred. Its Sheridan Drive along the lake sh.o.r.e southward is gradually extending, the intention being to connect with the Sheridan Boulevard constructed northward from Chicago. The lion of the city, however, is the great Pabst Brewery, covering thirty-four acres and producing eight hundred thousand barrels of beer a year. Twenty miles inland to the westward is a favorite resort of the Milwaukeans, the noted Bethesda Spring of Waukesha, whose waters they find it beneficial to take copiously, large quant.i.ties being also exported throughout America and Europe for their efficacy in diabetes and Bright's disease.

The capital of Wisconsin is the city of Madison, seventy-five miles west of Milwaukee, built on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, thus giving it an admirable position. It has about twenty thousand people, and the lake attractions make it a popular summer resort. The State Capitol is a handsome building in a s.p.a.cious park, one of the wings being occupied by the Wisconsin Historical Society, with a library of two hundred thousand volumes, an art gallery and museum. The great structure of Madison is the University of Wisconsin, the buildings in a commanding position on University Hill overlooking the charming Lake Mendota. There are seventeen hundred students, and its Washburn Observatory, one of the best in America, has wide fame.

ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI.

Westward from Lake Michigan all the railroads are laid across the prairie land _en route_ to various cities on the Mississippi River, several of them having St. Paul and Minneapolis for their objective points, although some go by quite roundabout ways. The great "Father of Waters" comes from Northern Minnesota, flows over the Falls of St.

Anthony at Minneapolis, and is a river of much scenic attractiveness down to Dubuque and Rock Island, its width being usually about three thousand feet, excepting at the bends, which are wider, the picturesque bluffs enclosing the valley sometimes rising six hundred feet high. The railways leading to it traverse the monotonous level of prairie in Illinois and Wisconsin, excepting where a stream may make a gorge, and the face of the country is everywhere almost the same. The Moline Rapids in the Mississippi above Rock Island afford good water-power, and here the Government, owning the island, has established a large a.r.s.enal, which is the base for all the western army supplies. The admirable location has made cities on either bank, Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa, both being commercial and manufacturing centres, and the latter city having the larger population. The Mississippi flows through a rather wide valley, with pleasant sh.o.r.es, having villas dotted on their slopes. The Moline Rapids, which are said to have a water-power rivalling the aggregate of all the cataracts in New England, descend twenty-two feet in a distance of fourteen miles. Above them, the river flows between Illinois and Iowa, and various flourishing towns are pa.s.sed, the largest being Dubuque, with fifty thousand people, the chief industrial city of Iowa, and a centre of the lead and zinc manufacture of the Galena district. This was the first settlement made by white men in Iowa, the city being named for Julien Dubuque, a French trader, who came in 1788 with a small party to work the lead-mines. Iowa is known as the "Hawkeye State," and its name is of Dakotan Indian derivation, meaning "drowsy," which, however, is hardly the proper basis for naming such a wide-awake Commonwealth. Opposite Dubuque is the northern boundary of Illinois, and above, the Mississippi separates Iowa from Wisconsin.

The Mississippi bordering bluffs now rise much higher and become more picturesque, Eagle Point, near Dubuque, being elevated three hundred feet. Prairie du Chien, just above the mouth of Wisconsin River, was one of the earliest French military posts. This region was the scene of the "Black Hawk War," that chief of the Sacs battling to get back certain lands which in 1832 had been ceded by the Sac and Fox Indians to the United States. He was finally defeated back of the western river sh.o.r.e, the boundary between Iowa and Minnesota being nearby.

Minnesota is the "North Star State," and its Indian name, taken from the river, flowing into the Mississippi above St. Paul, means the "cloudy water." The river scenery becomes more and more picturesque as the Mississippi is ascended, the bluffs rising to higher elevations.

La Crosse is a great lumber manufacturing town, drawing its timber from both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Above, where islands dot the channel, is perhaps the most beautiful section of the river.

Trempealeau Island, five hundred feet high, commands a magnificent view, and the Black River flows in through a splendid gorge. Winona is a prominent grain-shipping town, and at Wabasha the river expands into the beautiful Lake Pepin, thirty miles long and from three to five miles wide, with attractive sh.o.r.es and many popular resorts. Over the lake rise the bold round headland of Point No Point on one side and the Maiden Rock on the other. St. Croix River flows in above on the eastern bank, making an enlargement known as St. Croix Lake, and the upper Mississippi is now wholly within Minnesota, having here at the head of navigation the famous "Twin Cities" of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY

Father Hennepin was the first white man who penetrated the wilds of Minnesota, and in 1680 he discovered the great falls of the Mississippi River, to which he gave the name of his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. The river just below the falls naturally attracted the attention of the French adventurers who came to trade with the Sioux, Chippewas and Dakotas, and the first white man who tarried and built a house here was a Canadian voyageur, who came in 1838. In 1841 a French priest established the Roman Catholic mission of St. Paul on the bank of the river, and thus the settlement was named. The admirable water-power of the falls, which, with their two miles of rapids, descend seventy-eight feet, afterwards attracted the attention of millers, lumbermen and other manufacturers, and this made the settlement of Minneapolis, ten miles westward and farther up the river, which began in 1849, the name meaning the "city of the waters."

St. Paul grew with rapidity, being encouraged both by steamboat and afterwards by railway traffic; but Minneapolis, though started later, subsequently outstripped it. The two places, rivals yet friends, have extended towards each other, so as to almost form one large city, and they now have over four hundred thousand inhabitants. These "Twin Cities" are running a rapid race in prosperity, each independently of the other. St. Paul is rather more of a trading city, while Minneapolis is an emporium of sawmills and the greatest flour-mills in the world. Both are admirably located upon the bluffs rising above the Mississippi. St. Paul is situated upon a series of ornamental semicircular terraces that are very attractive, though in some portions rather circ.u.mscribed. Minneapolis is built on a more extensive plan upon an esplanade overlooking the falls, and extending to an island in midstream, and also over upon the opposite northern side of the river. The Falls of St. Anthony is the most powerful waterfall in the United States wholly applied to manufacturing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter having a descent of about fifty feet.

It is protected by a wall built by the Government across the river, to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone formation, there having been serious inroads made, while the surface is covered with an ap.r.o.n of planks over which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to shoot logs down. However much Father Hennepin may have admired the beauties of this great cataract, there is no longer anything picturesque about the Falls of St. Anthony. Logs jam the upper river, where the booms catch them for the sawmills, and subterranean channels conduct the water in various directions to the mills, and discharge their foaming streams below. There is no romance in the rumble of flour-rollers and the buzz of saws, but they mean a great deal of profitable business.

The force exerted by the falls at low water is estimated at one hundred and thirty-five thousand horse-power.

St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota, and the State is building a magnificent new Capitol, constructed of granite and marble, with a lofty central dome, at a cost exceeding $2,000,000. There is a fine City Hall and many imposing and substantial business edifices. Its especial residence street, Summit Avenue, is upon a high ridge, parallel with and some distance back from the Mississippi, the chief dwelling, a large brownstone mansion, being the home of the leading railroad prince of the Northwest, President James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad. Here is also the new and s.p.a.cious Roman Catholic Seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas. The old military post of Fort Snelling is on the river above St. Paul, near the mouth of Minnesota River. In Minneapolis, the great building is the City Hall, completed in 1896, and having a tower rising three hundred and fifty feet, giving a superb view. The Guaranty Loan Company's Building is one of the finest office structures in America, with its roof arranged for a garden, where concerts are given. Minneapolis has a widely extended residential section, with hundreds of attractive mansions in ornamental grounds. Near the river bank is the University of Minnesota, having well-equipped buildings and attended by twenty-eight hundred students.

Minneapolis is the greatest flour manufacturing city in the world. Its mills, of which there are some twenty-five, are located along the river near the falls, and have a daily capacity of over sixty thousand barrels, turning out about eighteen millions of barrels annually, which are sent all over the globe. The whole country west and northwest of Minneapolis, including the Red River Valley, the Dakotas and Manitoba, is practically a fertile wheat field, growing the finest grain that is produced in America, and this makes the prosperity of the city. The Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company are the leading millers. The great Pillsbury A mill, which turns out ten thousand seven hundred barrels a day, is the world's champion flour-mill. It is a marvel of the economical manufacture, the railway cars coming in laden with wheat, being quickly emptied, and then filled with loaded flour-barrels and sacks for shipment. Machinery does practically everything from the shovelling of wheat out of the car to the packing of the barrel or sack with the product. This huge mill stands in relation to the flour trade as Niagara does to waterfalls. The other great Minneapolis industry is the lumber trade.

Minnesota is well timbered, a belt of fine forests, chiefly pine, stretching across it, known as the _Coteau des Bois_, or "Big Woods,"

an elevated plateau with a rolling surface, having thousands of lakes scattered through it, fed by springs, while their outlets go into streams feeding the Mississippi, down which the logs are floated to the booms above the falls. The extensive sawmills will cut over four hundred and fifty millions of feet of lumber in a year. Thus the flour and lumber have become the chief articles of export from Minneapolis.

There are several pleasant lakes in the neighborhood, which are popular resorts of the people of the "Twin Cities," the largest and most famous being Minnetonka, the Indian name meaning the "Big Water."

It is a pretty lake, at nearly a thousand feet elevation, with low, winding and tree-clad sh.o.r.es, having little islets dotted over its surface, and myriads of indented bays and jutting peninsulas which extend its sh.o.r.e line to over a hundred miles, though the extreme length of the lake is barely seventeen miles. There are many attractive places on the sh.o.r.es and islands, and large steamers ply on its bosom. From this lake the discharge is through the Minnehaha River, and its Minnehaha Falls, the "Laughing Water," poetically praised by Longfellow in Hiawatha. The beautiful glen in which this graceful cataract is found has been made a park. The falls are about fifty feet high, and a critical observer has recorded that there is "only wanting a little more water to be one of the most picturesque cascades in the country." Below the Minnehaha Falls is another on a smaller scale, which the people thereabout have nicknamed the "Minnegiggle." Thus sings Longfellow of Minnehaha:

"Homeward now went Hiawatha; Only once his pace he slackened, Only once he paused or halted, Paused to purchase heads of arrows Of the ancient Arrow-maker, In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley.

"There the ancient Arrow-maker Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, Smoothed and sharpened at the edges, Hard and polished, keen and costly.

"With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter, Wayward as the Minnehaha, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, Feet as rapid as the river, Tresses flowing like the water, And as musical a laughter; And he named her from the river, From the water-fall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water.

"Was it then for heads of arrows, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, That my Hiawatha halted In the land of the Dacotahs?

"Was it not to see the maiden, See the face of Laughing Water, Peeping from behind the curtain, Hear the rustling of her garments, From behind the waving curtain, As one sees the Minnehaha Gleaming, glancing through the branches, As one hears the Laughing Water, From behind its screen of branches?

"Who shall say what thoughts and visions Fill the fiery brains of young men?

Who shall say what dreams of beauty Filled the heart of Hiawatha?

All he told to old Nokomis, When he reached the lodge at sunset, Was the meeting with his father, Was his fight with Mudjekeewis; Not a word he said of arrows, Not a word of Laughing Water."

THE SOURCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

It was in Minnesota, in 1862, that the terrible Indian uprising occurred in which the Sioux, exasperated by the encroachments of the whites, attacked the western frontier settlements in August, and in less than two days ma.s.sacred eight hundred people. The troops were sent as soon as possible, attacked and defeated them in two battles, and thirty-eight of the Indians were executed on one scaffold at Mankato, on the Minnesota River southwest of Minneapolis, in December.

The State of Minnesota is said to contain fully ten thousand lakes of all sizes, the largest being Red Lake in the northern wilderness, having an area of three hundred and forty square miles. The surface of the State rises into what is known as the Itascan plateau in the northern central part at generally about seventeen hundred and fifty feet elevation. From this plateau four rivers flow out in various directions--the one on the Western Minnesota boundary, the Red River of the North, draining the western slope towards Lake Winnipeg and finally to Hudson Bay; the Rainy River, draining the northern slope also through Lake Winnipeg to Hudson Bay; the St. Louis River, flowing eastward to form the head of Lake Superior, and going thence to the Atlantic; and the Mississippi River, flowing southward to seek the Gulf of Mexico. Schoolcraft, the Indian ethnologist and explorer, named this Itascan plateau, and the little lake in its heart, where the Mississippi takes its rise, about two hundred miles north-northwest of Minneapolis, though the roundabout course of the river from its source to that city is a much longer distance, flowing nearly a thousand miles. There was a good deal of discussion as to whether this lake was really the head of the great river, as the lake received several small streams, but Schoolcraft settled the dispute, and named the lake Itasca, from a contraction of the Latin words _veritas caput_, the "true head." Its elevation is about sixteen hundred feet, being surrounded by pine-clad hills rising a hundred feet higher. Out of Itasca Lake the "Father of Waters" flows with a breadth of about twelve feet, and a depth ordinarily of less than two feet. It goes at first northerly, and then makes a grand curve through a long chain of lakes, describing a large semicircle to the eastward, and finally southwest, before it becomes settled as to direction, and takes its southeast course towards the Falls of St. Anthony, and onward in its grand progress to the Gulf.

THE ANCIENT LAKE AGa.s.sIZ.

The Minnesota River, rising on the western boundary of the State, flows nearly five hundred miles in a deeply carved valley through the "Big Woods" to the Mississippi. Its source is in the Big Stone Lake, which, with Lake Traverse to the northward, forms part of the Dakota boundary. The Red River of the North, rising in Lake Traverse and gathering together the streams on the western slope of the Itascan plateau, flows northward between Minnesota and North Dakota, and into Manitoba, two hundred and fifty miles to Lake Winnipeg. This river has cut its channel in a nearly level plain, and it is curious that in times of freshet its waters connect, through Lakes Traverse and the Big Stone, with the Minnesota, so that steamboats of light draught can then occasionally pa.s.s from the Mississippi waters north to Lake Winnipeg. It was this rich and level plain of the valley of the Red River that in the glacial epoch formed the bed of a vast lake which scientists have named Lake Aga.s.siz. Its area, as indicated by well-marked sh.o.r.e-lines and deltas, was a hundred miles wide and over four hundred miles long, stretching far into Manitoba, and the waters were two to four hundred feet deep. It was held up on the north by the retreating ice-sheet of the great glacier, the outlet being southward, where a channel fifty feet deep, fifty miles long and over a mile wide can now be distinctly traced leading its outflow into the Minnesota River, whose valley its floods then greatly enlarged on the way to the Mississippi. The plain of this lake bed is almost level, descending towards the northward about a foot to the mile, and here the ancient lake deposited the thick, rich, black soils which have made the greatest wheat-growing region of North America.

The first settlement of Dakota was on the Big Sioux River at Sioux Falls, where flour-mills and other manufacturing establishments have gathered around a fine water-power, and there are nearly fifty thousand people in the two towns of Sioux Falls in South Dakota and Sioux City in Iowa. The whole region to the northward and far over the Canadian boundary is a land of wheat-fields, with grain elevators dotting the flat prairie at the railway stations, for all the roads have lines to tap the lucrative trade of this prolific region. The Northern Pacific Railway crosses Red River at Fargo, which, with the town of Moorhead, both being wheat and flour centres, has a population of fifteen thousand. To the westward are the vast "Bonanza" wheat farms of Dakota, of which the best known is the Dalrymple farm, covering forty-five thousand acres. Steam-ploughs make continuous furrows for many miles in the cultivation, and in the spring the seeding is done. The whole country is covered with a vast expanse of waving, yellow grain in the summer, and the harvest comes in August.

To the westward flows James River through a similar district, and the country beyond rises into the higher plateau stretching to the Missouri. This fertile wheat-growing region extends far northward over the Canadian border forming the Province of Manitoba, the name coming from Lake Manitoba, which in the Cree Indian dialect means the "home of Manitou, the Great Spirit." Its enormous wheat product makes the business of the flouring-mills of Minneapolis, Duluth and many other cities, and furnishes a vast stream of grain to go through the Soo Ca.n.a.l down the lakes and St. Lawrence, much being exported to Europe.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, which provides the traffic outlet for Manitoba, comes from the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior at Port Arthur northwestward up the valley of the Kaministiquia River, and its tributary the Wabigoon, the Indian "Stream of the Lilies." This was the ancient portage, and by this trail and Winnipeg River, the canoe route of the Hudson Bay Company voyageurs, Lord Wolseley led the British army in 1870 to Fort Garry (Winnipeg) that suppressed Louis Riel's French-Indian half-breed rebellion, which had possession of the post. The railway route is through an extensive forest, and leads near the northern sh.o.r.e of the Lake of the Woods, crossing its outlet stream at Rat Portage, so named from the numerous colonies of muskrats, a town of sawmills standing at the rocky rim of the lake, where its waters break through and down rapids of twenty feet fall to seek Winnipeg River, the Ounipigon or "muddy water" of the Crees.

Here, and at Keewatin beyond, are grand water-powers, the latter having mammoth mills that grind the Manitoba wheat and send the flour to England. Then, emerging from the forests, the railway crosses the rich black soils of the Red River Valley, and beyond that river enters Winnipeg, the "Prairie City" and commercial metropolis of the Canadian Northwest. For nearly eight hundred miles this alluvial region spreads west and northwest of Winnipeg, with varying degrees of fertility, to the Rocky Mountains. Here, at the junction of the a.s.siniboine River, coming from the remote northwest, with Red River, has grown a Canadian Chicago of fifty thousand people, developed almost as if by magic, from the little settlement of two hundred and forty souls, whom Wolseley found in 1870, around what was then regarded as the distant Hudson Bay Company frontier post of Fort Garry. Its original name when first established was Fort Gibraltar. The two rivers wander crookedly over the flat land, and between them the city covers an extensive surface. A half-dozen railways radiate in various directions, and there are s.p.a.cious car-yards and stations. Winnipeg has an energetic population, largely Scotch and Americans, but with picturesque touches given by the copper-colored Indians and French half-breeds, who wander about in their native costumes, though most of these have gone away from Red River Valley to the far Northwest. The city has good streets, many fine buildings and attractive stores. The Manitoba Government Buildings adjoin the a.s.siniboine River, and the military barracks of Fort Osborne are alongside. Near the junction of the rivers is the little stone gateway left standing, which is almost all that remains of the original trading-post buildings of Fort Garry, representing the venerable Hudson Bay Company, chartered by King Charles II. in 1670, that controlled the whole vast empire of the Canadian Northwest. This Company was a grant by the king originally to Prince Rupert and a few a.s.sociates of a monopoly of the fur trade over a vast territory in North America, extending from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay and the Pacific Ocean. In this way that portion of British America came to be popularly known in England as "Prince Rupert's Land." The great Company existed for nearly two hundred years, had one hundred and fifty-two trading-posts, and employed three thousand traders, agents and voyageurs, and many thousands of Indians. In the bartering with the red men, the unit of account was the beaver skin, which was the equivalent of two martens or twenty muskrats, while the pelt of a silver fox was five times as valuable as a beaver. In 1869, when the Dominion of Canada was formed, England bought the sovereignty of the Company for $1,500,000 and transferred its territory to Canada. The Company still retains its posts and stores, however, and conducts throughout the Northwest a mercantile business. Far to the westward of Winnipeg spread the fertile prairies of Manitoba and a.s.siniboia Provinces, until they gradually blend into the rounded and gra.s.s-covered foothills making the grazing ranges of Alberta that finally rise into the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies.

DAKOTA AND MONTANA.

Three railways are constructed westward from Red River to the Rockies and Pacific Ocean,--the Northern Pacific and Great Northern in the United States and the Canadian Pacific beyond the international boundary. The former cross the plateau to the Upper Missouri River, and there the Northern Pacific route reaches Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, having a fine Capitol set on a hill, the corner-stone of which was laid in 1883, with the noted Sioux chief Sitting Bull a.s.sisting. This region not so long ago knew only soldiers and Indians; but there has since been a great influx of white settlers, enforcing the idea of which Whittier has significantly written:

"Behind the squaw's birch-bark canoe, The steamer smokes and raves; And city lots are staked for sale Above old Indian graves."

The frontier army post of Fort Lincoln on the bluff alongside the river testifies to the time not yet remote when the Sioux and Crow Indians of the Dakotas needed a good deal of military control. The deer, buffalo and antelope then roamed these boundless prairies, but they have all disappeared. Beyond the Missouri River is the region of the Dakota "Bad Lands." The surface rises into sharp conical elevations known as "b.u.t.tes," and soon this curious district of pyramidal hills known as Pyramid Park is entered, fire and water having had a remarkable effect upon them. Their red sides are furrowed by the rains, and smoke issues from some of the crevices. The lignite and coal deposits underlying this country have produced subterranean fires that burnt the clays above until they became brittle and red.

There are ashes and scoriae in patches, and cinders looking much like the outcast of an iron furnace. The b.u.t.tes are at times isolated and sometimes in rows, many being of large size. Their sides are often terraced regularly, and frequently into fantastic shapes, occasionally appearing as the sloping ramparts of a fort. There are frequent pot-like holes among them, filled with reddish, brackish water, and sometimes excavated in the ground with regularly square-cut edges.

When the railway route cuts into a b.u.t.te, its interior is disclosed as a pile of red-burnt clay fragments mixed with ashes and sand. Little prairie dogs dodge in and out of their holes, but there is not much else of life. The boundary is crossed into Montana, and the "Bad Lands" gradually give place to a grazing section. Here stands up the great Sentinel b.u.t.te, with its reddish-yellow sides, near the Montana border, and the railway route then descends from the higher region to the valley of the Yellowstone.

The Yellowstone River, one of the headwaters of the Missouri, rises in the National Park, and its fertile valley is among the leading pasturages of Montana. Cattle and sheep abound, and the cowboys are universal, galloping about on energetic little bronchos, with lariats hanging from the saddle. The Big Horn River flows in, and an extensive region to the southward is the Crow Indian reservation, about three thousand living there. It was here, near Fort Custer, at a point forty-five miles south of the railroad, that the terrible ma.s.sacre took place in June, 1876, by which General Custer and his command of over two hundred and fifty men were annihilated by the Sioux. There is now a national cemetery at the place. We gradually enter the mountain ranges which are the outposts of the Rockies, and pa.s.sing between the Yellowstone range and the Belt Mountains, reach Livingston, a town of several thousand people, and a great centre for hunting and fishing, at the entrance to the Yellowstone National Park. From here a branch railway turns southward, ascending the valley of the Yellowstone, going through its first canyon, known as the "Gate of the Mountain,"

an impressive rocky gorge, and ascending a steep grade, so that the floor of the valley rises within the Park to an elevation of over six thousand feet above the sea. A second canyon is pa.s.sed, and on its western side is a huge peak whose upheaved red rocks have named it the Cinnabar Mountain. These red rocks are in strata streaked down its sides with intervening granite and limestone. One of these, the Devil's Slide, is conspicuous, its quartzite walls rising high above the lower strata and making a veritable slide of great proportions down the mountain. The railroad ends at Cinnabar, and stages cover the remaining distance up the Yellowstone to its confluence with Gardiner River at the Park entrance, and thence to the Mammoth Hot Springs within the Park, the tourist headquarters.