Traversing the Wilderness

The greatest event of the year in the fur trade, was the trip to Montreal, and the subsequent journeys into the wilderness. During the early years in which John Jacob Astor carried on his own business, he made trips each spring or summer to Canada, and shipped the furs purchased to London, as up to 1794 the law still existed against importing from British possessions.

His walks through the forests of Lower Canada, New York, and Michigan, guided by coureurs des bois, were full of novel experiences and exciting adventure. Dash, energy and skill, characterized these wood-runners, who, while they were wild, reckless, and daring, were also familiar with the climate, wide tracts of country, and the haunts of the Indians. These qualities made them invaluable adjuncts to John Jacob Astor's projects. He, himself, was ever ready to follow where they led.

They started on their tramps with packs on their backs, which besides arms and ammunition, were partly food and partly goods to be traded with the Indians for skins. Various kinds of berries and small fruits were to be found in their season, as well as game in the woods and fish in the streams, but their main object was securing peltries, and the rough and barren country over which they traveled did not always offer even a slight nourishment for hungry traders.

One such traveler describes leagues of the journey after this fashion: "The road of the portage is truly that of heaven, for it is straight, full of obstacles, slippery places, thorns and bogs. The men who pass it loaded, and who are obliged to carry over it bales, certainly deserve the name of men. This villainous portage is only inhabited by owls, because no other animal could find its living there, and the cries of these solitary birds are enough to frighten an angel, and to intimidate a Caesar,"

The packages carried weighed anywhere from sixty to ninety pounds. In the spring with these on their backs, the travelers made twenty miles or more a day over the rugged country. During these trips John Jacob Astor visited encampments on the St. Lawrence and at Saginaw Bay, as well as those in the heart of the woods. Surprising an Indian settlement, or being met by outrunning red men with skins over their shoulders, the trader's task was only begun.

The Indian disposition was suspicious. Rival traders had played upon the fears and the cupidity of these men of primitive nature, each representing his opponents as unreliable. Fire water had often been used to excite them still further. In their dealings with the red men, the traders were frequently called upon to quell disorder by a show of fierce anger or force, but John Jacob Astor's tact, and uniform fair dealing, as well as his entire avoidance of the use of spiritous liquors, caused his interchange of trade with the Indians, to be most uniquely successful.

He exercised the utmost care in avoiding a separation from his guides in the great Northern forests. In some instances of this kind, the lost trader had not been found for many months, until some hunting party came, by chance, upon his wasted body in some lonely shelter, where, too weak to go further, he had lain down to die. There were others more fortunate, who had strayed from their guides, but after their ammunition gave out had been able to sustain life on frogs and roots, hawks and an occasional find of nests of small eggs, until they came across a vacant wintering cabin of some absent trader, where they eked out a bare subsistence until help came.

Such occurrences were not uncommon, nor were the sufferings alone those of hunger. Shoes worn off the feet by rough walking, made further search for guides or companions a painful experience. The finding of a pair of socks or shoes in an empty cabin, or the making of moccasins for the lost hunter by some friendly Indian woman, were looked upon as godsends.

Though the purchase of a canoe in these Northern woods had been made in return for a knife, still there were other occasions when the red men looked for presents from the white men, with a degree of eager expectancy which amounted to a demand. Failing of the gifts they desired, in many instances they were ready to steal and plunder.

In planning the miles to be covered before nightfall, or ere they were caught in the teeth of a storm, John Jacob Astor often found their destination a considerable distance further on, for it was the custom of the voyaguers to count leagues by the smoking of their pipes. One pipe was supposed to be a league's length, and the accustomed stopping place for a rest. In point of fact, a man pulling at a pipe usually found it empty in two miles instead of three.

Planning, watching, circumventing, bartering in such a way as would leave a friendly feeling, and an opening for trade the ensuing year, John Jacob Astor found use for all his skill and finesse. It was this type of trade on a large scale that gave the fur companies of the North the name of "The Lords of the Lakes and the Forests." Many of these "Lords" carried on homes of rude splendor, and ruled the country round about, in fact, if not in name.

John Jacob Astor discovered other "free traders" in these remote woods and water-ways besides himself. There was John Johnson who came from Ireland in 1792, having heard of the romantic life of the fur trader. He set out from Montreal and made his way into the interior, settling on the South side of Lake Superior, as an independent trader.

There is a romantic story of his falling in love with the beautiful daughter of Wagobish, the "White Fisher," whose domain extended to the Mississippi. The "White Fisher" made his sugar on the skirts of a high mountain. There John Johnson first saw his eldest daughter, a beautiful girl of fourteen, who was rambling with a cousin on the east side of the mountain. At the base of a steep cliff the young girls found a long flat piece of yellow metal, too heavy for them to lift. They decided it belonged to "The Gitche Manitou," "The Great Spirit," and left the place hastily in superstitous awe. It was afterward suggested that some Southern tribe, which had immigrated to the North, may have built here an altar dedicated to the sun, a remnant of which the young Indian girls had accidentally discovered. John Johnson fell precipitantly in love with the Indian princess, whom he met under such unique circumstances, and lost no time in asking her hand in marriage from the chief, her father. But "White Fisher" was not pleased with the marriages made after the country fashion, and asked that Johnson return to Ireland for a time. If, after a sufficient period of probation, the lover's affection remained the same, he would give his consent to their marriage.

John Johnson consented to the conditions, and going back to Ireland, disposed of his property there, to return after the allotted time was past, to the wilds of America, where he claimed his bride. They settled at Sault Sainte Marie, where the fur trader built a comfortable home, which contained, among other civilized furnishings, a good library. His grounds were laid out in beautiful gardens of flowers and vegetables, and stretching afar in this boundless estate, was a wide plantation of Indian corn. In this oasis in the wilderness, John Johnson carried on the important life of a fur trader.

George and Charles Ermatinger, two other independent traders, sons of a Swiss merchant of Canada, both settled at Sault Sainte Marie. They were men of great energy, courage and local influence. The two brothers had a large fur-trading establishment on the south side of the river, opposite the rapids. The two families and their children, their trading establishment, their grist mill, and their stone mansion, made quite a settlement of their own. But John Jacob Astor 's objective points were not the settlements, but the forests and the water-ways.

His journeys through the wilderness in search of furs were full of hardships, hairbreadth escapes, and the thrill of adventure. There fell to his lot also great wonders of nature, of which he loved to speak in his later days—the primitive forests into whose depths he was at times the first white man to penetrate; the quiet of the evening broken by some gigantic tree of the woods, falling with a crash among the branches of its fellows, moved by no human hand; the plaintiff cry of the loon in the lonely solitudes; the glorious song of birds wafting brilliant plumage over his head at sunrise, or the eagle soaring against the blue sky.

The Indians, themselves, in all their glory of wilderness costume, with their peculiar sign language, formed no mean part of the picturesque, as well as the commercial, in these travels. They sometimes entertained their white employers by rare exhibitions of woodlore, and the fantastic sights to be obtained from nature's gifts. They were accustomed to set the fir trees on fire by piling a great number of dried limbs near the trunks. When lighted, an almost instantaneous blaze shot to the very tops of the tall trees, making a most beautiful and brilliant spectacle at night. The Indian reason for this illumination was, that it might bring fair weather for a journey. There was interest in plenty for the fur-trader to entice him on his way toward his destination, an eager watching for the next marvel of nature, and ultimately the hope and expectation of a good trade.

The final point aimed at by the traders, voyageurs, and wood-runners, was Grand Portage, which ended on a bay of Lake Superior, partially sheltered by a rocky island. Here there were extensive wharves, a fort, and several trading posts. The portage was a well-made road, nine or ten miles long, which had been built to avoid the falls of Pigeon River. John Jacob Astor was one among the hundreds interested in the fur business, who made a bustling life of this important halfway meeting place, at certain seasons of the year.

The crowds came and went in two streams. One stream flowed in from Montreal, leaving in May and returning in September, in canoes of four tons' burden, each carrying eight or ten men. As these voyageurs traveled the least hazardous part of the way, and lived on cured rations, they were called "Goers and Comers" or "Pork Eaters."

The second stream of men turned inland in canoes of about half the size of those that made the start from Montreal. These latter were purchased from the Indians. The fare of these men was largely the dried meat of the buffalo, known as pemmican, except as they varied it with game shot by their own guns, or fish from the streams.

These were the daring coureurs des bois. After August 11th, the hurry of the season began. Woodrunners, carrying one hundred and fifty pounds, portaged their burdens over the ten-mile road, and were often known to make the portage and return in six hours, carrying goods of commerce or skins each way. The canoes which embarked from the north side of the portage for the far-off fur stations, were manned by four or five men, and were loaded with two-thirds goods and one-third provisions. Launched upon a small river, they continued through successive portages, lakes and rivers, westward or northward.

John Jacob Astor bought his beaver and otter skins at Grand Portage from the Red River district, his marten, mink and musquash from other sections far inland. Traders who journeyed themselves to these far-away posts found much of the primeval life of the forest, beside the peltries they sought from Indian collectors. Dr. Coues, in editing the journel of Alexander Henry, Jr., a young trader of the Northwest, gives a sketch of the life of the Red River section.

"February 28th, 1801. Wolves and crows are very numerous, feeding on buffalo carcasses which lie in every direction. I shot two buffalo cows, a calf, and two bulls, and got home after dark. I was choking with thirst, having chased the buffalo on snow shoes in the heat of the day, when the snow so adheres that one is scarcely able to raise the feet. A draught of water was the sweetest beverage I had ever tasted. An Indian brought in a calf of this year, which he found dead. It was well grown, and must have perished last night in the snow. This is extraordinary; they say it denotes an early spring.

March 5th. The buffaloes have for some time been wandering in every direction. My men have raised and put their traps in order for the spring hunt, as the raccoons begin to come out of their winter quarters in the day time, though they retire to the hollow trees at night.

On the eighth it rained for four hours; fresh meat thawed. On the ninth we saw the first spring bird. Bald eagles we have seen the whole winter, but now they are numerous, feeding on the buffalo carcasses."

Grand Portage was often spoken of as "the general rendezvous of the fur traders." The fort was built on a grassy flat at the edge of the bay, overshadowed by a rocky hill of great height, and was four hundred by five hundred feet. Within, there were dwelling houses, shops and stores, stables and gardens—the houses made safe from hostile attack by rows of palisades, a foot and a half in diameter, sunk three feet in the earth and rising to a height of fifteen feet above ground.

When the fur merchants from Montreal gathered here each summer, with their hosts of attendants, they entertained guests from the camps in the wilderness, as well as others from nearer districts, who remembered their hospitality through many a day of succeeding hardships. "We were feasted on the best of everything, and the best of fish, and met the gentlemen from Montreal in good fellowship," wrote one young wintering partner, of this hospitable gathering place.

This was the summer session of "the Lords of the Lakes and the Forests," a body of great financiers and accomplished traders, courageous and daring, yet tactful in their management of the Indians; as a whole treating them fairly, except through short periods of unwise leadership. They were men who ventured in new lands and untried fields, and with the venture won a magnificent success. One of these men who ventured was John Jacob Astor, independent trader in the fur country.