The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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children playing around its doors; upon a cluster of twenty or thirty white houses surrounded by gardens and flower-beds. Three years ago this was a solitude.
There is a sail-boat upon the lake, which some gentlemen of our party chartered for a fishing-excursion. Thinking perhaps we should get more fish by dividing our force, I took a skiff, and obtained a stalwart Norwegian to row it. Almost as soon as my hook touched the water I felt a tug at the other end of the line, and in came a pickerel, — a three-pounder! The Norwegian rowed slowly along the head of the lake, and one big fellow after another was pulled into the boat. There was scarcely a breath of wind, and the sails were idly flapping against the masts of the larger boat, where my friends were whiling away the time as best they could, tantalized by seeing that I was having all the fun. They could only crack their rifles at a loon, or at the flocks of ducks swimming along the shore.
But there was rare sport at hand. I discovered an enormous turtle lying upon the surface of the water as if asleep. "Approach gently," I said to the Norwegian. He dipped his oars softly, and sent the skiff stern foremost towards the turtle, who was puffing and blowing like a wheezy old gentleman sound asleep.
One more push of the oar and he will be mine. Too late! We have lost him. Down he goes. I can see him four feet beneath us, clawing off. No, he is coming up. He rises to the surface. I grasp his tail with both hands, and jerk with all my might. The boat dips, but a backward spring saves it from going over, and his majesty of White Bear Lake, the oldest inhabitant of its silver waters, weighing forty-six pounds, — so venerable that he wears a garden-bed of grass and weeds upon his back — is floundering in the half-filled skiff.
The boatman springs to his feet, stands on the seat with uplifted oar, undecided whether to jump overboard or to fight the monster who is making at his legs with open jaws.
By an adroit movement of an oar I whirl him upon his back, and hold him down while the Norwegian paddles slowly to the beach.
The captive rides in a meal-bag the remainder of the day, hissing now and then, and striving to regain his liberty.
Ah! isn't that a delicious supper which we sit down to out upon the prairies on the shores of Lightning Lake, — beyond the borders of civilization! It is not mock turtle, but the genuine article, such as aldermen eat. True, we have tin cups and plates, and other primitive table furniture, but hunger sharpens the appetite, and food is as toothsome as if served on gold-bordered china. Besides turtle-soup we have fresh fish and boiled duck. Who is there that would not like to find such fare inside the borders of civilization?
Beyond Pope we entered Grant County, containing 268,000 acres of land, nearly all open to settlement, and through which the main line of the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad will be constructed the present year. The population of the entire county probably does not exceed five hundred, who are mostly Swedes and Norwegians. It is on the ridge, or, rather, the gentle undulating prairie, between the waters of the Red River of the North and the Chippewa River, an affluent of the Minnesota. We passed between two small lakes; the waters of one find their way to the Gulf of Mexico, the other to the Arctic Sea.
Our second Sabbath camp was upon the bank of the Red River of the North, — a beautiful stream, winding its peaceful way through a country as fertile as the Delta of the Nile.
For two days we had journeyed over rolling prairie, seeing no inhabitant; but on Saturday afternoon we reached the great thoroughfare leading from the Mississippi to the Red River, — travelled by the Fort Abercrombie stage, and by the Pembina and Fort Garry carts, by government trains and the ox-teams that transport the supplies of the Hudson Bay Company.
Sitting there upon the bank of the Red River amid the tall, rank grasses, and watching the flowing stream, my thoughts went with its tide towards the Northern Sea. It has its rise a hundred miles or more north of us, near Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi, flows southward to this point turns westward here, is joined below by a stream issuing from Lake Traverse, its most southern source, and then flows due north to Lake Winnipeg, a distance altogether of about five hundred miles.
It is the great southern artery of a water-system that lies almost wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the United States.
The Assinniboine joins it just before reaching Lake Winnipeg, and up that stream we may steam due west two hundred and thirty miles to Fort Ellis. From Winnipeg we may pass eastward to the intricate Rainy Lake system towards Superior, or westward into Lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis, which together contain as much water as Lake Erie.
Sailing along the western shore of Lake Winnipeg two hundred miles, we reach the mouth of the Saskatchawan, large enough to be classed as one of the great rivers of the continent.
Professor Hind, of Toronto, who conducted a government exploring-party through the country northwest of Lake Superior, says: "The Saskatchawan, which gathers the waters from a country greater in extent than the vast region drained by the St. Lawrence and all its tributaries, from Lake Superior to the Gulf, is navigable for more than a thousand miles of its course, with the single exception of a few rapids near its confluence with Lake Winnipeg."
Professor Hind travelled from Fort Garry northwest over the prairies towards the Rocky Mountains, and gives the following description of his first view of the stream. He says: —
"The first view, six hundred miles from the lake, filled me with astonishment and admiration, — nearly half a mile broad, flowing with a swift current, and still I was three hundred and fifty miles from the mountains."
The small steamer now plying on the Red River might, during the season of high water, make its way from Fort Abercrombie down this river, then through Lake Winnipeg, and up the Saskatchawan westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains, — a distance altogether of sixteen hundred miles.
We are in the latitude of the continental water-system. If we travel along the parallel eastward, one hundred miles will bring us to the Mississippi at Crow Wing, another hundred will take us to Lake Superior, where we may embark on a propeller of five hundred tons and make our way down through the lakes and the St. Lawrence to Liverpool, or any other foreign port; or travelling west three hundred miles will bring us to the Missouri, where we may take one of the steamers plying on that stream and go up to Fort Benton under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.
Two hundred and fifty miles farther by land, through the mining region of Montana, will bring us to the navigable waters of the Columbia, down which we may glide to the Pacific.
Nowhere in the Eastern hemisphere is there such a succession of lakes and navigable rivers, and no other country exhibits such an area of arable land so intersected by fresh-water streams.
It would be an easy matter by canals to connect the Red River, the Saskatchawan, and Lake Winnipeg with the Mississippi. We can take a canoe from this point and paddle up to Otter-Tail Lake, and there, by carrying it a mile or so over a sand-ridge, launch it on Leaf River, an affluent of the Crow-Wing, and so reach the Father of Waters. We may do even better than that. Instead of paddling up stream we may float down with the current a few miles to the outlet of Lake Traverse, row across the lake, and from that into Big Stone Lake, which is the source of the Minnesota River, and by this route reach the Mississippi below Minneapolis. Boats carrying two tons have frequently passed from one river to the other during the season of high water. It would not be difficult to construct a canal by which steamers might pass from the Mississippi to the base of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. Railroads are superseding canals, and it is not likely that any such improvement of the water-way will be attempted during the present generation.
But a glance at the river and lake systems enables us to obtain a view of the physical features of the country. We see that the northwestern portion of the continent is an extended plain. The Red River here by our encampment is about nine hundred and sixty feet above the sea. If we were to float down to Lake Winnipeg, we should find that sheet of water three hundred feet lower.
Our camp is pitched to-day about ten miles west of the 96th meridian. If we were to travel south from this point 350 miles, we should reach Omaha, which is 946 feet above the sea, so that if we were sitting on the bank of the Missouri at that point, we should be just about as high above tide-water as we are while lolling here in