First European Dwelling on the "Delightfullest Lake in the World"

I have a new novel coming out about a year from now, and the setting may not be entirely familiar to some readers. For that reason, I've embarked upon a series of posts meant to shed light on the history of the fur trade around Lake Superior, and in particular, along the northern Wisconsin (Ouiscansainte) shore and northeastern shore of present-day Minnesota. I hope to give readers an inside look into a rugged world long past--and to also glimpse a beautiful part of the country you can still discover today.

Last month, I wrote about how the Beaver Wars aided in European conquest of North America. Prior to the Beaver Wars, a few Jesuit priests and trappers, as well as some famous explorers like Nicolet, La Salle,  and Joliet reached Wisconsin. But long years passed until other white men came to the country. Finally, as those earlier wars died out, Europeans pushed further into the wilderness once again, including the intrepid entrepreneurs Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers. (You have to wonder about the wives of such explorers. Perhaps they deserve a novel of their own. Hmm...) I digress. 

Pierre-Esprit Radisson

Wikimedia Commons

Radisson and Grosseilliers famously explored the Lake Superior region, including the upper Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Radisson became particularly well-known, since he was the first to author colorful descriptions of my state (Wisconsin) and of his experiences in the wilderness.

In 1659, upon reaching Lake Superior the first time, Radisson--who had previously travelled all over Europe, including to Italy--remarked, "We embarked ourselves on the delightfullest lake in the world." For such a traveler to call Lake Superior the delightfullest says something about the grandeur of the location.

Photo by Lucas Ludwig on Unsplash

Photo by Paul Ewing on Unsplash

Although other traders had come into the region, it's been purported that Radisson and Grosseilliers were the first white men to establish themselves for any duration, settling for about a year on Superior's pristine Chequamegon Bay, around which can now be found the towns of Ashland, Washburn, and Bayfield. It's said they built a dwelling here--a wooden cabin and a crude stockade--near where Ashland is today. 

I used to live in Ashland. Oh, how I wish I had known the history of the area prior to my living there when I was only nineteen!

This marker commemorates the first dwelling and stockade at the mouth of Fish Creek, where it empties into Chequamegon Bay. The creek was called Wikwedo-Sibiwishen by the Indians, meaning Bay Creek. There was a large village of Ottawa who raised Indian corn near here at one time. 

The temporary home built by the explorers was likely quite a crude cabin with a three-sided stockade. Radisson described it as having a door facing the water, and the pine-poled stockade itself was laid about with piles of boughs in which they'd strung a cord laced with little trade bells to give them warning of marauders, possibly the Huron for whom there was some apparent distrust. However, it was never put to the test, as they were never robbed or assaulted. 

A copyrighted drawing depicting what the building might have looked like can be viewed on the Wisconsin History site here. 

Surrounding Chequamegon Bay are beaches, red sandstone cliffs, and thick pine forests that stretch for hundreds of miles south and west, and all the way to Lake Michigan to the east. Myriad rivers wind through these dense woods, some coming so close to one another that Wisconsin became an intersecting highway all the way to the Mississippi and south to the Gulf, and via the Great Lakes northeast to Hudson's Bay and eastward to the coast--ideal routes for those who traded in fur for decades to come.

Radisson and Groseilliers were true coureur du bois (see my 2019 article), later credited with establishing the Hudson Bay Company, which still exists today. After passing their first long winter on the bay and trading with Ojibwe and Huron from they region, they then journeyed westward, following trails and rivers far into the Mille Lacs region of Minnesota, many miles away. The following spring, they returned again to Chequamegon Bay and built another shelter in a new location, this time possibly on a long sandspit. From there, after trading and adventuring as far northwest as Lake Assiniboine, they finally returned home to Quebec.

One thing is certain. The work done by Radisson and Grosseilliers paved the way for many more fur traders and missionaries to follow. Yet, the French eventually lost their foothold in this amazing country, due largely to their own king's lack of vision. Even Radisson and Grosseillier eventually turned their loyalties to the English when they were not only not recognized for their accomplishments, but actually punished for exceeding their granted authority.

Today, Ashland, Wisconsin is a small city that stands just east of their Fish Creek location. It is known as the mural capitol of Wisconsin. Life-sized scenes like the one above depicting Wisconsin's history are painted all throughout the city.

Wouldn't it be fun to travel to all the historical locations we read about in our favorite novels? Have you ever traveled somewhere just because it was in a location you read about in a novel? I don't travel much, but here I am dipping my toes in Chequamegon Bay. I wonder if Radisson and Grosseiliers ever lounged about, doing the same.

Here's to exciting explorations and discoveries for each of us in the coming new year!

Naomi

https://naomimusch.com/

Point Iroquois Lighthouse and the Massacre of 1662

Isn't that a beautiful lighthouse? Point Iroquois Lighthouse is at the foot of Whitefish Bay (made famous around the country by Gordon Lightfoot's song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald") on Lake Superior. It was built in 1870, replacing the first wooden structures that had served there since 1857. It operated as a functioning lighthouse until 1962, when it was replaced by an automated light across the shipping channel near Gros Cap, Ontario. The building was placed on the list of National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Why is this significant? My husband and I are in the process of applying to be the volunteer lighthouse keepers for a year in 2022. The volunteer keepers live in the larger side of the lighthouse duplex - to the right in this photo - while the smaller side and the tower are open to the public from mid-May to early-October every year. Our duties would include keeping the grounds, greeting guests, working in the little bookstore (yes! it has a bookstore!), and performing the general maintenance.

If this all works out, I can only imagine sitting in this historic building, looking out over majestic Lake Superior, and writing down the stories they want me to tell.

Why talk about this on Colonial Quills? Because this area was very busy during the Colonial period. The first white men to come were the French explorers Brule and Grenoble. Point Iroquois became a familiar landmark for the French explorers, fur traders, and missionaries who followed.

The name of the place, Point Iroquois, comes from an Indian massacre that happened here in 1662. The local natives were Ojibwe who fished and hunted the area. In 1662, an Iroquois war party invaded in an attempt to control more of the fur trade. The Ojibwe defeated the Iroquois on the shores where the lighthouse stands today. The Ojibwe called this place "Nau-do-we-e-gun-ing," which means "Place of Iroquois Bones."

While our history books fixate on only the greed and expansion of the Europeans in this country, it's good to remember that people are people no matter the color of their skin. The desire for a better life - however one defines that - is not and never was limited to one sector of the human race. The Ojibwe slaughtered the Iroquois in 1662 to stop their westward expansion and protect their own interests. In the years that followed, they'd fight many more battles with other tribes as well as the Europeans who came with their metal pots, woven cloth, whiskey, and guns. But they couldn't stop progress any more than we can today. Yesterday's metal pots are today's cell phones. Can you imagine going back to a time before we had them?


Pegg Thomas writes "History with a Touch of Humor."

The Lovelorn Explorer Who Broadened France's Empire in North America

Love can change the world. We know that's true of God's love, but we all like to think the same is true of affairs of the heart. Here in the month when love is most celebrated, we can certainly say that love--of at least the heartbroken variety--did indeed change the colonial world in the late 1670s.

Studying North America in the 1600s is to learn of the great explorers and the claiming of land for European empires, as well as the founding of colonies across the landscape. One such explorer was Daniel Greysolon Sieur du Lhut (or in the Quebec archival rendering: Daniel de Gresolon du Luth and Americanized as Daniel Greysolon Duluth). In late June, 1679, he planted a banner for France, "His Majesty's Arms" on the location of present day Duluth Minnesota, at the very head of Lake Superior, "in the great village of the Nadouecioux (Sioux), called Izatys, where never had a Frenchman been..." That was what Duluth penned in a letter to the French Minister of Marine, to quell allegations made against him that he had deserted Montreal to engage in the fur trade without the proper licensing to do so. He was not quite accurate in his proclamation that no other Frenchman had been in this part of the world. Groseilliers and Radison had arrived in Sioux country some years prior. However, I digress.

Let's back up.

Duluth was born in Saint-Germaine-en-Laye near Paris in or around 1654. At that time, Saint Germaine was something of a resort area for the French court. Duluth's own family had some noble lineage along with a degree of wealth from his mother's side which qualified him as a "gentleman". Being among the "petit noblesse" (similar to being a gentleman of lower lineage in England) he decided to join the army.  

Now fast-forward a little bit.

Duluth served as a "Gendarme de la Guard du roi", military guardsmen who were only recruited from among the nobility. He boasted about this appointment for years to come, even though he eventually found the slow advancement and days spent around a somewhat effeminate court life unsatisfactory for a young man of his energetic and ambitious nature. Rather, life in New France sounded exciting. He resigned from his position with the Guard and soon made his way to Montreal where friends and family, as well as his previous commission, gave him ready entry into Montreal society. In those esteemed circles he met the old Boucher family, who had several daughters, one in particular who caught his eye and then his heart.

Within a year or two, however, Duluth had to return to France to settle some family matters. While he was there, he became caught up in the Franco-Dutch war and took part in the bloody battle of Seneffe, serving as a squire to the young Marquis de Lassay. 

Finally, at war's end, he returned again to Canada and leased a small home. His amore for Madamoiselle Boucher had not lessened during his time away, and a year or two later he built a much more elegant and somewhat palatial estate on the shores of the majestic St. Lawrence River. He no doubt hoped to bring his lady-love to his expansive, well-appointed home as his bride. In the meantime, he also developed aspirations to trade in the growing fur market.

Meanwhile, the Bouchers had risen to even higher prominence in Montreal society. With their advancement in social circles, the young lady in question, for whom Duluth had long pined, disapproved of his plans to enter trade. The couple's differing opinions rose to surface in quarrels again and again, apparently heatedly at times. Caught in this stalemate, it eventually became clear to Duluth that he had lost at love, so the two parted company. Duluth then did what any lovelorn, heart-broken individual might do. He got out of there. 

Being still a man in his twenties, the call of the Far West beckoned. Duluth quickly sold his fine home and invested his money in everything he would need to venture west, from canoes to trade goods. He also worked at cultivating friendly relations with the natives, and as a result, they offered him three slaves as guides for his journey. With his guides and eight Frenchman, including his brother Claude, the brigade embarked westward, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Duluth spent the following winter at the Falls of Saint Mary's (the Sault), an important village set neatly on the Saint Mary River connecting lakes Superior and Huron. During that time, Duluth's head probably cleared some after his heartbreak, for he seemed to recall that he'd departed Montreal without a proper license to trade from Governor Frontenac. In an attempt to set things right, he wrote the afformentioned letter, assuring the French Minister of his loyalties to France and of his intent to open up the west in such a way meant to expand the King's interests. He pointed out his purpose to bring peace between the Sioux and Ojibwe, and to secure the natives' trade away from the English by currying their favor so that they might promise to bring all their pelts to Montreal and Quebec.

It seems that Duluth all along did intend to reach the mouth of the St. Louis River at the head of Lake Superior, and once he did, he crossed what was called the "Little Portage" and planted His Majesty's colors, laying all claim to the region south and west of Lake Superior for France. 

Duluth went on to meet with the Indians, spreading feasts, summoning councils, and doing all in his power to show good will and establish firm relations. He ventured deep into the northern forests and down the rivers to the south all the way to the Mississippi. Far and above his own interests in fur trading, he was patriotic. Many more adventures came his way, although it appears he never again sought to take a French wife. He died in in Montreal in 1720 with his valet LaRoche in attendance to the end.

My belief is that once burned was all it took for monsieur Duluth to give up matrimonial notions. He had more illustrious endeavors to attend to for his true mistress--France. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it. I'll share a bit more about Daniel Greysolon Sieur du Lhut next month, when I write about the infamous scourge of fur traders known as the courier du bois. 

Until then, here's to love and adventure.

Naomi Musch

https://naomimusch.com/

Stone marker near the site where Daniel Greysolon Sieur du Luth landed and planted the French flag
in present Canal Park, Duluth, Minnesota.

   

Fur Trade History Comes Alive at the Lester River Rendezvous! (Enter a Rafflecopter Giveaway!)

Rats! I missed the firing of the cannon. Three times! Every time the reenactors prepared to fire the cannon last weekend at the annual Lester River Rendezvous, I was engrossed in some other amazing learning experience and didn't get to watch. I sure heard it though! I had been anticipating the rendezvous most of the summer, not unlike the northerners of a bygone era.

For nearly a century, primarily in the 1700s and early 1800s, trappers, traders, Native Americans, Métis, Frenchmen and Scots, British and American -- among them the flamboyant voyageurs -- arrived from points scattered throughout the wilderness for the yearly festivities called the rendezvous. Rendezvous took place at important forts all throughout the Great Lakes region. At these locations, men who'd lived a rugged existence in the wilderness harvesting furs, company clerks, or bourgeois company men arriving from the east, came together to engage in the exchange of pelts for goods. In the process a fortune was made for the North West, XY, and Hudson's Bay companies. But the rendezvous was also a time when all these wilderness folk enjoyed revelry, feasting, gaming, and occasionally brawling. The event would last for several weeks in summer, then just as quickly when it ended, everyone would disperse. The hunters and trappers returned to the forest and native villages, the clerks to their posts, the voyageurs to winter in the Upper Country or back to Montreal with canoes mounded with bales of pelts, eager to satisfy the European hunger for fur.

This last week I attended a re-enactment of one of those events just north of Duluth, Minnesota on the Lester River where it twists and tumbles over rocks and down the hill. There it spills into magnificent Lake Superior. I couldn't absorb the experience any more eagerly! Here are some highlights.

This fellow went by the rendezvous name of Jacques LeChristian. I asked him right off if he was a bourgeois trader, and his eyes brightened. "Why, yes I am!" he said. Later in the day I purchased a CD of voyageur legends told by my new friend Monsieur LeChristian.

The  Lester River Rendezvous is set up mostly as an educational village open for two days to school groups, and then one day for the general public. Thousands of visitors enjoy free entrance onto the site where they can partake in food and music, and most excitingly, a visit to the Voyageurs' Village.

Here I am on the river, experiencing the excitement of the rendezvous which has so much to do with the time and setting my new novel Mist O'er the Voyageur coming out next Wednesday.                                                                                                         

             

I enjoyed a number of demonstrations of how people used to live during those times while I strolled through Voyageur Village at the rendezvous. In future posts, I'll give some of the "how to" details I learned for everything from rendering bear fat to starting a fire with char cloth and flint.

The lady above was of Métis heritage. I enjoyed hearing her talk about her ancestors and the vital role of the Métis in the fur trade and voyageur era. She also sewed all these beautiful costumes!

This lady was busy tanning hides. She described various processes to do it, depending on the type of finished product. Here, she is softening a rabbit hide. She also had a large number of other interesting items on display including this box of glass beads. Beads were a popular trade item during for many years.

 

The lady in the photograph above is making sour dough cinnamon rolls. Not so unusual in itself. However; she's also teaching about the process of making and keeping sour dough, and she's baking them over the fire in a "Dutch oven". More on that in a future post!

This red-hatted fellow was so engaging! He had the children and adults enraptured as he demonstrated the method used to build fires back in a time when matchsticks hadn't been invented. He had to take special precautions with that beard! 

Above we have the tinsmith selling his wares, and below is the blacksmith. I wish I could have invested in the beautiful ax or some of the gorgeous knives he created. I settled for a lovely little robe hook for $2. Now that's an affordable souvenir!

Talk about a pot of soup! This big kettle was called the chaudier by the French voyageurs. Brigitte Marchal, the heroine in my tale, becomes very familiar with that piece of equipment! (I could use one of these for family gatherings.)

Though this was not a real birch bark canoe (this one was "disguised" as a real canoe so that the kids could get inside and learn to paddle) I had to get a picture standing next to the North West Company emblem.

Have you attended any rendezvous re-enactments? Next on my schedule are the Forts Folle Avione Rendezvous on the Yellow River in Northwest Wisconsin, and the Great Grand Portage Rendezvous in Grand Portage, Northeastern Minnesota. Living History provides a learning environment of discovery and engagement in a way that reading a history book can't provide. Whatever part of history you're curious about, from the French and Indian wars, to the Civil War, to visiting an historical speakeasy -- it's a vivid way to dig deeper into history that you don't want to miss!

Now it's time for a drawing!

With my novel, Mist O'er the Voyageur coming out in less than a week, I'm celebrating with 3 chances to win an e-book and the opportunity to win the Grand Prize Drawing at month's end. Use the Rafflecopter below to enter. (The book is also available for pre-order until it releases.)

Catch you again in the pages of history~
Naomi Musch

a Rafflecopter giveaway