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/

Étienne Brulé, Lake Superior's First European Visitor

Being a Midwesterner, when I think of the Colonial era, I almost always consider what was going on in other parts of the continent west, north, or south of the Alleghenies during that time. Colonization was pushing into those regions also, as the race was on between European countries to settle our massive continent and wrest it from anyone here before them.

About the time the Pilgrims were landing on Plymouth Rock, French explorer Étienne Brulé was already visiting Lake Superior's Apostle Islands just off the north shore of present day Wisconsin. He was the first European explorer to venture beyond the St. Lawrence River into Canada. 

Brulé was born not far from Paris, France, but it is believed he came to the American continent in the company of Samuel de Champlain in 1608, ahead of other well-known explorers. In Champlain's writings, he referred to Brulé as "my lad" and remarked on his ambition and abilities. Because of Brulé's desire to see what laid beyond the Richelieu River and Lake Champlain and to know about the Algonquin people, Champlain sent him off to seek a route that would carry them westward to the great lake they'd heard about. So Brulé became a true pathfinder. He mastered Huron language and culture. When next he met with Champlain, Champlain noted how Brulé had taken on the manner of dress of his Indian allies, and that Brulé gave a good report of his time spent among them. When Champlain "discovered" Lake Huron, he met his young interpreter already there and gave him permission to continue on further south, as was his desire.

Over the next couple of years, Brulé continued his travels among the native peoples deep in the interior. He remarked on the many powerful and warlike nations (the Iroquois, of whom he was at one time captured by and tortured, then saved by his own wits). He made his way as far as the junction of lakes Erie and Ontario and then to the Susquehanna River. He was the first to explore Pennsylvania. 

Brulé was eventually denounced by a friar for his immoral life-style among the Indians and was further discredited for not being on the up-and-up with France, playing a two-sided game of working for the administration under Champlain but also for the fur merchants who opposed him.  

In 1629, after Champlain gave up his colony (Quebec) to England's Kirke brothers, he wanted Brulé to return to France with the company, but Brulé, along with a fellow interpreter Nicolas Marsolet, claimed they'd be hung if they returned, so they remained behind. 

Later on, while the colony was still under English rule, the young and adventurous Étienne Brulé was killed by the Hurons he knew so well. Word reached Champlain in 1633.

It's hard to imagine these explorers and their native allies covering such vast amounts of rough country and becoming so well adjusted to the life styles they took on. I love thinking about those days, the grandeur they first laid eyes on, and trying to coax from my visions of that time something akin to what it must have been like, don't you?

Naomi Musch
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."

Minnesota and Early American History

When people think of early American history, Minnesota probably doesn't come to mind. On the east coast, there are a wealth of historical events and people that we think of, pushing their way from the Atlantic Ocean, over the Appalachian Mountains, onward toward the Mississippi.

But, Minnesota? What was happening there?

For me, when I think of early American history, I almost always think of Minnesota first. Why? Because I've been studying my state's history since I was a teenager, and there are a surprising number of important historical events and people who impacted not only early Minnesota history, but also a broader scope of American history.

The five biggest influences in early Minnesota history were explorers, fur traders, missionaries, warring Native American tribes, and the military presence.

Father Hennepin discovering St. Anthony Falls on the
Mississippi (present-day Minneapolis), in 1680

Minnesota is blessed with two significant bodies of water that impacted early American history. Lake Superior and the Mississippi River. The first European to find Lake Superior is Etienne Brule in 1623. He was a French fur trader and explorer. Some believe he made it all the way to present day Duluth, MN. In 1659, two more French fur traders and explorers made it to what is present day Minnesota. They were Medart Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit Radisson. On their heels were French explorers and missionaries, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette, who found and mapped the upper portion of the Mississippi River from Minnesota to what is now Arkansas.

French explorers and fur traders on Lake Superior.

With the discovery of those significant bodies of water, other explorers, missionaries, and fur traders soon followed.

One notable explorer was Zebulon Pike, for whom Pike's Peak is named in Colorado. In 1805, he was sent by the United States government to find the source of the Mississippi and to locate an ideal spot for a military fort. He met with some success, as he acquired over 100,000 acres of land where Fort Snelling (near present-day St. Paul) was built in 1819. While traversing up the Mississippi, an early winter set in and he built a fort and stockade near present-day Little Falls, MN (my hometown). His men wintered there while Pike continued north. He thought he had found the source of the Mississippi, however, he was proven wrong in later years.

Zebulon Pike

Fur trading and missionary work make up the bulk of European involvement in early Minnesota history. But Native American history is also an important aspect of that time period.

Ojibwe Chiefs in the early 1800's.

Around the time of European entrance into Minnesota, the Ojibwe Indians, who had been occupying parts of Canada and Michigan, and working with the French fur traders, acquired weapons and moved into the Upper Mississippi region, pushing their enemies, the Sioux, to southern Minnesota. For over two centuries, the Ojibwe and Sioux fought, and the area where I live in central Minnesota was a contested zone that both tribes claimed. Another military presence was needed in this area, so in 1849, Fort Ripley (then called Fort Gaines) was built.

This is just a tiny glimpse into Minnesota history and all the people and events that helped shape this beautiful and diverse state. Maybe, just maybe, Minnesota will come to mind the next time you think of early American history.

Your Turn: Are you surprised at how early Europeans discovered Minnesota? Did you realize so much was happening in this Midwest state at such an early date? Do you have any questions about Minnesota history?

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four young children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people and events. Gabrielle's next release, A Mother in the Making, will be available in September from Love Inspired Historical. She can be found at www.gabriellemeyer.com where she writes about her passion for history, Minnesota, and her faith.              

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