View from the Water, 1823
From L.M. “Buzz” Lein’s archival collection (Nipigon
Historical Museum)
From his research at Fort William Public Library:
Excerpt from: Dr. John Jeremiah Bigsby’s (1792 – 1881) “The Shoe and Canoe,
Vol II” published in London 1850
Reprinted Paladin Press, N.Y. 1969 L.C. #69-19549
pages 223-228 (minus
illustrations)
page 186:… “Having had our boat carted by oxen across the
British Portage (Sault Ste. Marie) we commenced on the 19th of June,
1823, our coasting voyage, so easily made now along the north shores of Lake
Superior as far as the Grand Portage a distance of 445 miles.”
Page 223:
NIPIGON BAY
From Cape Verd westward to Fort William
(ninety to ninety-five miles by canoe) the north shore of Lake Superior is
divided into three very large bays – Nipigon,
Black, and Thunder Bays. They require
separate notice.
The first of
these, Nipigon proper, extends to Gravel Point , on the great peninsula of the Mammelles, a distance of forty-six
miles, outside of the islands soon to be mentioned.
Nipigon Bay may be roughly stated as thirty-six
miles across from east to west, four to six miles deep at its east end, and
sixteen on its west end. Its wide mouth
(or outer face) is closed up with a dense belt of large and small islands,
which, taken together, are denominated “The
Pays Plat,” a translation from
Chippewa language , and refers only to the shallow black or red floor of the
lake hereabouts. (According to the colour of the amygdaloid or porphyries
subjacent. The lake, too, is remarkably transparent here: for miles from land
we see its bottom.) [ Now that is something that I can attest to still
being the case as I was puttering around in an out-board in that area in 1966.-
B.B 2016]
It is true
that there is one large island, very level in parts, and covered with shingle
and loose rocks; but, generally speaking, it is an elevated region. I cannot
describe this splendid bay and archipelago with any minuteness. Mine was only a reconnaissance. The surveyor and naturalist will follow.
The islands
are numerous. I made the circuit of the
whole by going outside in June, and inside- page 224 – in the ruder month of
September. St. Ignatius, the most westerly island save one, is much the
largest. There are three or four others,
extending from it to Cape Verd, girded with some that are smaller.
St. Ignatius
The Island
of St. Ignatius, according to
Captain Bayfield’s map, is twenty-six miles long by twelve broad. It is oblong in shape. Its centre is table land, sometimes 1300 feet
high, and dipping on all sides in rough declivities and precipices, whose
features change with the component rock.
If this be porphyry (common here), we have long pilasters, beginning at
the crest of some sterile height, and ending below on a slope of ruins, thinly
wooded. This we see on the south side of
the island, in Fluor Island, at the
west end of St. Ignatius, and in
Stag’s –Home, Detroit. ( Fluor Island
is in hummocks, and rises to the height of 1000 feet.) The high black cliffs of
the latter are very impressive and gloomy.
If the cliffs be of red sandstone (often as hard as jasper, and fissured
horizontally), they are only in patches at the very summits of lofty flanks
buried in woods.
The islands
east of St. Ignatius are often very
high; their sandstone precipices are occasionally
formed nearer the level of the lake, and then they are worn by watercourses
into singular shapes, - page 225- such as pillars, arches, recesses (for
statues!) and window-like apertures, which not a little resemble a street of
ruined chapels and chantries shrouded by mosses, vines and forest trees. We have this fissured state of the rock both
in the inner and outer routes.
Wherever the
sandstone or red porphyry is found all the beaches and bare places are red; but
as much of the Pays Plat is of black trap and amygdaloid, the colour there is
rusty black.
On one of
the islets at the west end of the Pays Plat we have a beautiful
display of true basaltic columns. A
sketch was given me by Captain Bayfield.
The island
called La Grange is in a fine open
basin not far from Nipigon River, with a few others about it having flat
tops. It is a naked mass of trap rock,
springing high and perpendicular out of a slope of coppice. It is exactly like one of the long barns of
Lower Canada, and thence its name. We
passed it on a lovely evening towards sunset.
Not far from this island I took as a memorial, perhaps unwisely, from
off a jutting point, the skull of a bear placed on a pole. It was as white as snow, and must have been
there many years as a land-mark.
The trappose
and amygdaloidal districts are here thickly wooded, but the trees – mountain ash
(very common), - page 226- spruce, pitch pine, birch, etc. – are hide-bound and
small, sheathed in the trailing moss called goat’s- beard.
Nipigon Bay and the River
The region
around Nipigon Bay is full of enchanting scenery. As we journey up this great water we have the
ever-changing pictures presented by the belt of islands on our left; while on
our right we have the Nipigon mainland, an assemblage of bold mountains from
900 to 1200 feet high, tabular, rounded, or in hummocks, or sugar-loaf, and only
separated by very narrow clefts or gorges.
My sketches
give a poor idea of all this, as I could only draw where I had opportunity, not
in the finest situations.
The bay is a
beautiful lake of itself, so transparent that we can, for miles together, see
its red pavement, and the living and dead things there inhabiting. It is sprinkled with a few isles of conical
or tabular rocks, each with its girdle of verdure, in which are little coves,
inviting to repose, with bright red beaches, reminding one of the Aegean Sea,
or the Friendly Isles.
The Nipigon, Alempigon, or Redstone River,
enters the bay at its west end. It is
from 80 to 100 yards broad at its mouth, and discharges a muddy grey
water. Its length is ninety miles, and on it are seven
cascades and three rapids. It comes from
–page 227 – Lake Nipigon (or St. Anne), which is sixty miles round,
and in a barren country. [ Note – these are odd mileages, so he must be quoting
someone – because the Nipigon River isn’t that long! – B.B. ]
Footnote; From Mr. Mackenzie of Fort
Nipigon, who told me a singular story of the momentary resurrection of an
Indian about to be buried without his arrows and medicine bag etc., some years
before Beckford’s Italian legend of a similar kind was in English print. It shows that human nature repeats itself all
over the world, with modifications.
THE
MAMMELLES
The Mammelles Hills are 21 and a half miles
from Gravel Point, a well-known resting-place. There are several, but the two
most conspicuous are cones of soft and beautiful outlines, at least 800 feet
high, and close together at the south-west corner of the great promontory between
Black and Nipigon Bays, being the southern extremity of a long ridge coming
from the north.
The Mammelles district consists of this
head-land and the multitudinous islands which are in front of it. It bears a strong resemblance to the Nipigon
country. Space forbids our entering into
a detailed description of it.
We slept, on
the 23rd of June (1823), on the edge of a beautiful basin, two miles
and a half south-east of the Mammelles
Hills, and next morning plunged into a charming labyrinth of porphyritic,
amygdaloidal, and sandstone islands, sheltered even from a hurricane. From time to time we saw the free lake at the
bottom of a long vista of pine-clad islands; and we were glad, for the sake of change,
- page 228 – to come suddenly (nine miles from camp) into open water, opposite Thunder Mountain, seven miles from us,
at Point Porphyry.
BLACK BAY
This
magnificent headland is a principal feature in Lake Superior, and forms the
north-west end of Black Bay. This
Bay I am informed by Captain Bayfield, is forty-six miles deep, and extremely
woody. It receives a large river. The
mouth of the bay is partially guarded by a great assemblage of woody, and for
the most part low islands.
The high
hills at the bottom of Black Bay are visible from its mouth, of course much
depressed below the horizon. Several
islands occupy the centre of the bay.
It is not
always that a boat can cross from the Mammelles
to Thunder Mountain; but on the
24th of June the lake was as smooth as glass. We greatly enjoyed the
gradual unfolding, as we approached, of the various parts of the great basaltic
cape.
Footnote: Count
Andriani, an Italian nobleman, about the year 1800 fitted out a light canoe at
Montreal, through the agency of Messrs. Forsyth and Richardson, and
circumnavigated Lake Superior. He
occupied himself in astronomical observations and the admeasurement of heights,
mingling also freely with the Indians
