Special History:
The Environment and the Fur Trade Experience in
Voyageurs National Park, 1730-1870

Chapter Three
Material Culture (continued)

Habitations

Habitations in the Rainy Lake Region included posts, outposts, and camps. Related features included cultivated fields and vegetable gardens, livestock pens or grazing areas, and burial grounds.

Fort William

The Rainy Lake Region had no major installations on the scale of the Hudson's Bay Company's York Factory or the North West Company's Fort William, but the latter was close enough to exert an enormous influence. The buildings of Fort William in 1817, according to fur trader Ross Cox, included a large house and dining hall, a council house, a doctor's residence, store houses for furs and merchandise, a forge, various workshops with apartments for the mechanics, and a prison. The entire compound was surrounded by a stockade and bastions, and more habitations for voyageurs and Indians were located outside the fort's walls. Fort William was a veritable city in the wilderness, with a population of as many as 3,000 people.

Posts

The first post in the Rainy Lake Region was Fort St. Pierre, built in 1731. No physical description of the fort has been found. It had already vanished by the time the North West Company arrived in the area, although Sir Alexander Mackenzie and his contemporaries knew where the fort had once stood. In Voyages from Montreal, Mackenzie stated that the French fort had been situated at a bay in the Rainy River below a rapid and two miles above the famous falls. In Mackenzie's time, the site consisted of a "beautiful meadow, surrounded with groves of oaks." Research by historian Lawrence Burpee, as well as archaeological investigation, has placed the fort at Pither's Point, a peninsula on the Canadian side of the Rainy Lake outlet. Historian Grace Lee Nute described the appearance of Fort St. Charles, built one year after Fort St. Pierre at Lake of the Woods, as a likely approximation of Fort St. Pierre's design:

It extended about sixty feet from Angle River and about a hundred feet southward into the forest. Consisting of four main buildings with fireplaces, a powder magazine, a storehouse, a watchtower, and a stone, or partially stone, chapel, it was a little smaller than Fort Beauharnois on Lake Pepin, and somewhat larger than Fort St. Pierre, which it superseded for some years, at least, as headquarters for La Vérendrye. Yet it was not a very substantial affair, if we are to believe a man who lived there and who described it as "but an enclosure," inside which were "a few huts of squared logs, calked with earth and covered with bark."

The North West Company built a post about a mile and a half below the outlet of Rainy Lake in 1787. Mackenzie wrote that the fort was "situated on a high bank on the North side of the river." John McKay of the Hudson's Bay Company described this rival fort as "formidable" in appearance. By 1800, the fort had a large garden in which the proprietor cultivated potatoes and various other vegetables. In 1813, a visitor to the fort reported seeing "cultivated fields and domestic animals, such as horses, oxen, cows, etc." Few other descriptions of the North West Company fort are known.

John Tanner convalesces at Rainy Lake Fort Mr. Stewart left me at the Rainy Lake trading house, in the care of Simon McGillevray, a son of him who many years ago was so important a partner in the North West Company. He gave me a small room, where my daughters cooked for me, and dressed my wounds. I was very weak, and my arm badly swollen, fragments of bone coming out from time to time. I had lain here twenty-eight days, when Major Delafield, the United States commissioner for the boundary, came to the trading house, and having heard something of my history, proposed to bring me in his canoe to Mackinac. But I was too weak to undertake such a journey, though I wished to have accompanied him. Finding that this was the case, Major Delafield gave me a large supply of excellent provisions, two pounds of tea, some sugar and other articles, a tent, and some clothing, and left me. —A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, p. 277.

As the fort grew in importance, serving as an advance depot where the crews from the Athabaska District exchanged freight with the crews from Montreal, it must have grown into a sizable operation. A list of the men at Lac La Pluie Department in 1805 included 39 names. Of this number, 6 were clerks (4 of whom had English or Scottish names) and 33 were guides, interpreters, foremen, steersmen, middle men, and summer men (all but one of whom had French names). Hugh Faries, chief clerk at the fort in 1804, kept a diary that gives hints of the fort's appearance at that time. There were several "little houses" for the employees. These were made of squared logs with stone chimneys and plank floors. "Plaistering [sic] the houses" appears to have been an annual chore, shared by all the men, before each winter. There were probably a number of rough outbuildings, including a stable that the men built that fall. Faries made several mentions of an "Athabasca house," or "Athabasca store," apparently dedicated to the storage of supplies. Faries also referred to a number of "saw pits."

The Hudson's Bay Company established its first post in the Rainy Lake Region in 1793. The first house was located at the Manitou Rapids on the Rainy River. John McKay and his men went back to Albany Fort at the end of the year and when they returned to this house in the following spring they found it partially destroyed. McKay and his men erected a more substantial structure in the fall of 1795 on the shore of Lake of the Woods. He recorded in the post journal that his men laid a foundation for a house 25 feet long by 20 feet wide "within the walls." Evidently the house was surrounded by a stockade. The house walls were made of logs, the chimney of stones and clay, and the roof of hay. The house had multiple bedrooms and plank floors. The Hudson's Bay Company withdrew from the Rainy Lake Region in the late 1790s.

Joseph Delafield describes the Hudson's Bay Company post The Hudson's Bay Co. fort, as called, consists of a rude dwelling house, facing the cascade & a little below it, a warehouse forming another face, & the men's quarters the third of a square, the fourth being the river front, with a large gate way. It is enclosed by high pickets, & from the dwelling house thro' the gate way is a fine view of the cascade. —Major Joseph Delafield, The Unfortified Boundary, p. 422.

The Hudson's Bay Company returned to the Rainy Lake Region in 1817. Donald MacPherson oversaw construction of the new fort, which was located within sight of the falls about a mile below the North West Company fort. MacPherson's post journal mentions the construction of an officers' house and a men's house. A Catholic missionary who visited the site during the summer of 1818 described the Hudson's Bay Company post as under construction and still "in its infancy." Nicholas Garry, visiting the post in 1821, was more impressed. He described the post as built upon an eminence "commanding a beautiful and picturesque situation." Houses were constructed of logs, and window coverings were made of moose skin.

Many years later, members of the Red River Expedition of 1870 described the Hudson's Bay Company post, renamed Fort Frances. By then it consisted of a collection of one-story block-houses surrounded by a palisade, with about 100 acres of ground cleared for agriculture nearby. This is essentially the scene that Fort Frances pioneer Mrs. G. Scott remembered from her youth, when her father was in charge of the post. A resident at the post beginning in 1873, Scott recalled that the post

was composed of dwelling house for the gentleman in charge, the store and a provision shed and a few small log houses for the hired men and their families. All these buildings were enclosed by a high stockade fence hence the name fort, besides these there were outhouses for animals and dogs. The fort was situated on the banks of the Rainy River just you may say in the bend of the river below the falls.

Outposts

During the period of rivalry between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, numerous outposts appeared in the Rainy Lake Region. These were typically occupied by a single clerk and a handful of servants and probably consisted of no more than a cabin and a small garden. Faries noted the existence of an "XY Fort" located within walking distance of the North West Company fort. He also mentioned outposts near Portage La Pente and Jourdain Portage (on the route between Rainy Lake and Fort William). The Hudson's Bay Company had outposts at Bass Wood Lake, White Fish Lake, and Point de Meuron. No known outposts were located within the boundaries of Voyageurs National Park.

The Morgan party arrives at Vermilion Lake in a starving condition We started on again although we was so weak that we could hardly walk. We went on a piece and left the rest of our things, blankets and all, we leaving some the day before. We traveled very slow and stopped by spells to rest. La Rose's wife carried me some five or six miles on her shoulders until near dark when we built a fire where I remained. La Rose and his wife went on and arrived at the house at dark. They informed Mr. Beaulieu of my situation who with his dogs and train, came after me. He brought me a little scorched wheat which I ate that relieved a severe pain in my breast. I then got on to the train and late in the evening we arrived at the house. We found Mr. Beaulieu almost destitute of provisions. He had a few quarts of wheat and not much of anything else. He got of late the most of his living by a few fish they caught now and then. —Youngs L. Morgan diary, December 3, 1822

The closest outpost to Voyageurs National Park was probably located on what is now Crane Lake. An archaeological investigation by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1994 linked this site to two French traders under the command of La Vérendrye named Bourassa and Eustache. Possibly the same fort that these men built in 1736 was reoccupied from time to time by the French and later the British and Americans. Fur traders referred to Crane Lake as Vermilion Lake, or Little Vermilion Lake, which leads to confusion with the larger Vermilion Lake to the south. Lord Selkirk referred to an old North West house at what was presumably the larger Vermilion Lake in 1817: "the old NW house at Vermilion is off the route to the Grand Portage four or five days up a river that falls into Vermilion Lake." But historian Grace Lee Nute has concluded that other references to activity at Vermilion Lake, specifically by the Hudson's Bay Company's John McLoughlin, relate to Crane Lake on the southeastern edge of Voyageurs National Park. Roderick McKenzie reported that one Mr. Sayer of the North West Company occupied a post at Vermilion Lake with a force of one clerk and six servants in 1819. Dr. McLoughlin noted that a man named Beaulieu was at Vermilion Lake with a force of two clerks and six servants in 1822. (This was one of the Beaulieu brothers who worked for John Johnson, a Scotsman who lived on the American side of the Sault Ste. Marie River and began outfitting traders in the country west of Lake Superior in 1820.) During the winter of 1822-1823, Beaulieu and another party of traders, including a man named Youngs Morgan, nearly starved to death at Vermilion Lake. The following year, no less than three outfits were sent to Vermilion Lake, one by Johnson consisting again of two clerks and six servants, another by William M'Gillivray of the Hudson's Bay Company (under McLoughlin's command), and a third by the American Fur Company consisting of two clerks and seven servants. Hearing that one of the two American clerks was a customs house officer, and recognizing that Vermilion Lake was in American territory, McLoughlin called M'Gillivray's men back to the outpost at Bass Wood Lake. In his district report for 1823, McLoughlin noted that the Hudson's Bay Company had once had a post at Vermilion Lake, but that it had been abandoned because there was no wild rice in the vicinity.

James Anderson of the Hudson's Bay Company, in a diary of 1850, described a house at the outlet of the Namakan River belonging to one "Isbister." James Isbister served as the post master for the Lac La Pluie District, and was listed in the district's account book for 1847-1848. No other reference to Isbister's house has been found. Interestingly, his house was located at a popular fishing ground for the Indians. Anderson remarked only that his party dined near Isbister's house, which stood "on a point of very rich land, adorned with some splendid weeping elms, whose trunks were encircled by a climbing plant resembling the hop" (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Posts and Outposts of the Fur Trade Era.
(click on map for enlargement in a new window)

In the Hudson's Bay Company's Lac La Pluie post journal for 1817-1818, there are numerous references to a "Watch Tent" or "Watching Tent." For a few years, the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company each maintained two camps above and below their respective forts on the Rainy River. The purpose of the camps was to station men at strategic locations to hail approaching Indians and direct them to the company's fort instead of the rival fort. Both companies' upper camps were located within sight of each other at the outlet of Rainy Lake. (References were made to the tent at "the mouth of Lake LaPluie," and "the little Rapid watching place.") The lower camps appear to have been at the Little Fork. Men usually occupied the watching tents in pairs, taking turns in a kind of sentry duty. Some trading took place at these camps as well.

The camps were short-lived. The North West Company abandoned its camp at the outlet of Rainy Lake by March 1820. The Hudson's Bay Company apparently abandoned its camp soon afterward. By 1823, the site was no more than a grassy clearing. Joseph Delafield described its appearance:

The River of Lac l'Pluie...flows from the lake over a little rapid of two feet descent, and shortly after another similar rapid, and thence two miles or so to the Hudson's Bay Compy.'s trading post, known as the Fort of River of Lac l'Pluie....Descending the second rapid a handsome lawn coated with high grass presents itself, which I understood was an old lookout station of the Hudson's Bay Co. during the times of opposition, when he who first saw the approach of an Indian's canoe, and first got possession, was the owner of the spoils. Thence the advantage of these "look-outs," which now is of no other earthly use than to please the eye of the traveller and recall scenes far more delightful.

Camps

In addition to manning the watch tents, the post traders frequently went in pairs to look for Indians where they were known to make camps. These were most often fishing places. The men from the post went to these places to fish or trade or both. Three fishing places are mentioned most often in the post journals: Manitou Falls (on the Rainy River), Kettle Falls, and the rapids on the Namakan River.

Indians gathered at Manitou Falls in the fall to catch sturgeon by seining. The traders did some seining here themselves, and they also procured some of their sturgeon (a staple in the Rainy Lake Region) through trade with the Indians. Entries in the post journal in October 1819 are suggestive of the fishery's importance. On October 8, Roderick McKenzie sent four men to Manitou Falls with seine nets and three gallons of rum for trade. Losing the road in the new-fallen snow, the men returned to the fort. McKenzie worried that the missed opportunity to trade at Manitou Falls could bring disaster later in the winter. After three weeks of stormy weather, he sent another party to trade rum for sturgeon–despite word from the North West Company trader that there were no longer any sturgeon at the falls.

To the east, Kettle Falls was another fishing place where Indians gathered to catch sturgeon in the fall. Family groups met at the site, and traders from Rainy Lake House found Kettle Falls to be one of the more promising sites to contact Indians. In January 1825, John Cameron wrote in the post journal that an Ojibwe named The Cancer was taking a message to two other Ojibwe, Two Hearts and The Little Rat, to go to Kettle Falls with their "hunts" or skins, and the fort's interpreter would meet them there. According to the Rev. Peter Jacobs, who traveled through the area in 1852, Indians congregated at Kettle Falls throughout the summer, catching white fish in the eddies of the rapids.

The rapids on the Namakan River were located about seven miles above Namakan Lake. Alexander Mackenzie may have been the first European to record this place. He stated that the name of Namakan Lake derived from a particular fishing place at the foot of a falls where the Indians speared sturgeon. Jacobs wrote that the Indians called the place "Nahmaguun" and caught an abundance of both sturgeon and white fish there. James Anderson, traveling down the Namakan River in 1850, wrote in his diary, "At all the rapids the Indians have erected stages for spearing sturgeon."

Robert M. Ballantyne, an apprentice clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company who seemed to take more than the usual interest in the native cultures he encountered during his six years in North America, described an Ojibwe family camp on the Namakan River in 1845. It is a remarkably vivid portrait that Ballantyne presented in his book, Hudson's Bay, published three years later after the encounter, and one must assume that Ballantyne wrote from notes he took at the time. Since the portrait provides an image of people inhabiting their built environment, it is worth quoting in full:

In making a portage, we suddenly discovered a little Indian boy, dressed in the extreme of the Indian summer fashions–in other words, he was in a perfect state of nakedness, with the exception of a breech-cloth; and upon casting our eyes across the river we beheld his father, in a similar costume, busily employed in catching fish with a hand-net. He was really a wild, picturesque-looking fellow, interested in his proceedings. When I first saw him, he was standing upon a rock close to the edge of a foaming rapid, into the eddies of which he gazed intently, with the net raised in the air, and his muscular frame motionless, as if petrified in the act of striking. Suddenly the net swung through the air, and his body quivered as he strained every sinew to force it quickly through the water: in a moment it came out with a beautiful white-fish, upwards of a foot long, glittering like silver as it struggled in the mesh. In the space of half an hour he had caught half-a-dozen in this manner, and we bought three or four of the finest for a few plugs of tobacco. His wigwam and family were close at hand, so, while our men crossed the portage, I ran up to see them.

The tent, which was made of sheets of birch-bark sewed together, was pitched beneath the branches of a gigantic pine, upon the lower limbs of which hung a pair of worn-out snowshoes, a very dirty blanket, and a short bow, with a quiver of arrows near it. At the foot of it, upon the ground, were scattered a few old tin pots, several pairs of moccasins, and a gun; while against it leaned an Indian cradle, in which a small very brown baby, with jet-black eyes and hair, stood bolt upright, basking in the sun's rays, and bearing a comical resemblance to an Egyptian mummy. At the door of the tent a child of riper years amused itself, by rolling about among the chips of wood, useless bits of deer-skin and filth, that is always strewn around a wigwam. On the right hand lay a pile of firewood, with an axe beside it, near which crouched a half-starved, wretched-looking, nondescript dog, who kicked up a tremendous row the moment he cast eyes upon me. Such was the outside. The interior, which was filled with smoke from the fire and Indians' pipes, was, if possible, even dirtier. Amid a large pile of rabbit-skins reclined an old woman, who was busily employed plucking the feathers from a fine duck, which she preserved carefully (the feathers, not the duck) in a bag, for the purpose of trading them with the Company at a future period. Her dress was a coat of rabbit-skins, so strangely shaped that no one could possibly tell how she ever got it off or on. This, however, was doubtless a matter of little consequence to her, as Indians seldom take the trouble of changing their clothes, or even of undressing at all. The coat was fearfully dirty, and hung upon her in a way that led me to suppose she had worn it for six months, and that it would fall off her in a few days. A pair of faded blue cloth leggins completed her costume–her dirty shoulders, arms, and feet being quite destitute of covering; while her long black hair fell in tangled masses upon her neck, and it was evidently a long time since a comb had passed through it. On the other side sat a younger woman similarly attired, employed in mending a hand-net; and on a very much worn buffalo robe sat a young man (probably the brother of the one we had seen fishing), wrapped in a blanket, smoking his pipe in silence. A few dirty little half-naked boys lay sprawling among several packages of furs, tied up in birch-bark, and disputed with two or three ill-looking dogs for the most commodious place whereon to lie. The fire in the middle of the tent sent up a cloud of smoke which escaped through an aperture at the top, and from a cross-bar depended a few slices of deers-meat, which was undergoing the process of being smoked.

There are numerous mentions of Indians dwelling on the islands in Namakan Lake. Joseph Delafield noted wigwams on several islands in the lake. Peter Jacobs wrote in his diary that these islands had enough soil to be cultivated, and some Indian families grew potatoes on them, which they traded to the Europeans.

Traders occasionally described specific locations of other Indian camps. Alexander Henry the Elder, traveling through the area in 1775, noted an Ojibwe village of 50 lodges at "Les Fourches" (Little Fork) on the Rainy River. John MacDonell traded with The Premier, Nectam, and 20 young men in 1794 at a location on Rainy Lake some "five leagues" from the fort. Alexander Henry mentioned Pointe de Sable or Sand Point, for which Sand Point Lake is named, where they found some Indians making canoes. John McLoughlin mentioned sending men to the mouth of the Seine River (which empties into the north side of Rainy Lake) to trade with Two Hearts at his lodge. McLoughlin's instructions to the men were to cache their trade goods if Two Hearts could not be found.

References to caches are rare in the traders' journals, probably because caches were by definition secret. John Tanner provided a good description of a cache in his narrative: "Here we had packs to deposit, as we were about to leave the country; and the ground being too swampy to admit of burying them in the usual manner, we made a sunjegwun of logs, so tight that a mouse could not enter it; in which we left all our packs and other property, which we could not carry." Interestingly, Tanner maintained that Indians traditionally respected another person's cache, whereas traders regarded such a find as booty.

A large number of Indians resided near the Rainy Lake House. Friedrich von Graffenreid, a soldier of the Hudson's Bay Company, described the large encampment of "Salteaux Indians" (Ojibwe) in 1817. The encampment consisted of about 50 "huts" or wigwams in the longhouse style, elongated rather than round but nonetheless built "in the typical pole and birch bark fashion." Some of these dwellings, Graffenreid stated, were inhabited by several families. This community was considerably larger than the typical Ojibwe camp, which might consist of a cluster of wigwams and perhaps 30 to 50 men and their families. Many years later, in the 1870s, the Ojibwe occupied their birch bark wigwams along the bank of the river from Fort Frances to Pithers Point each summer and were away trapping each winter, according to a reminiscence by the daughter of post trader Charles S. Crowe.

If Indian camps generally made a fairly light impression on the landscape, traders' overnight camps made even less of a footprint. Nevertheless, traders sometimes described where they stopped for breakfast or dinner or a night's rest in fairly precise detail. These references provide clues as to how they traveled through the area and in what locations they were most apt to have discarded or lost material items. As noted earlier, the speed of travel from Grand Portage or Fort William to Rainy Lake House increased once the traders reached the big waters of Lake Namakan and Rainy Lake. The passage typically involved one or perhaps two overnight stops, some additional stops for meals, and sometimes a degrade if the weather turned threatening. The traders most often stopped on the small, rocky islands that fringed the two lakes. New Portage was another common place to rest, as was the Little Detroit (Brule Narrows). Most of these stopping places are probably submerged today.

The Red River Expedition probably had a somewhat bigger impact when it passed through the area in 1870; indeed, according to some participants it practically cut a road as it went. The force was considerably strung out to avoid congestion at the many portages. Each brigade consisted of three officers, 50 men, and 12 or 13 voyageurs. According to Colonel G. J. Wolseley's orders, each brigade was to encamp at the far (westward) end of a portage and to "pile up their provisions close to the landing place...covering them over with the boat tarpaulins." Cooking fires were to be built close to the water so as to minimize the danger of starting forest fires. All arms were to remain in the arms chests until the force reached Fort Frances. Camp equipment for each brigade consisted of one tent for the officers, four for the soldiers, and one for the voyageurs; Flanders kettles and frying pans for cooking; axes, spades, and shovels for clearing the way; and a kit issued to each soldier containing a waterproof bag, various items of clothing, two gray blankets, mosquito netting, clasp knife, tin cup, tin plate, knife, fork, and spoon, towel, soap, and comb, clothes brush, and a small note book.

Several diarists in the Red River Expedition of 1870 described locations of camps where their brigades stopped for a night. John Emslie's brigade camped on an island "in the center" of Namakan Lake, which they named Canvas Island because they used one of the boat's sails for a makeshift tent. The same brigade camped the next night on an island in Rainy Lake, which Emslie estimated to be 18 miles from the east shore. The group made little progress against a head wind on the next day and camped on another island in Rainy Lake. The next morning, still rowing against the wind, they crossed to the American shore and finally reached Fort Frances in the evening.

Josiah Jones Bell's brigade camped August 6, 1870, at a high point between two bays on Namakan Lake. After traversing New Portage, they camped August 7 on a rocky island in the "middle" of Rainy Lake. H. S. H. Riddell's brigade also camped on an island in Namakan Lake, where they were visited by "100 half-starved Chippewa." Wolseley's orders included a prohibition against allowing Indians to stay in the camps, but it appears to have been difficult to enforce. Emslie's party, for example, was visited by the same group of Indians on two consecutive nights while they traversed Rainy Lake.

Wild Rice

Wild rice was harvested in the Rainy Lake Region in prehistoric times. There is direct evidence of wild rice use dating back to the Middle Woodland period. The Ojibwe harvested wild rice in the Rainy Lake Region probably as soon as they occupied the area in the 1700s. Their use of wild rice increased during the fur trade era as they harvested some for their own subsistence and additional quantities for trade.

Since the European fur traders relied heavily on native foods for provisioning their posts, they took a keen interest in the locations of wild rice beds. When La Jémeraye built Fort St. Pierre in 1731 at the outlet of Rainy Lake, he may have been influenced by the abundance of rice beds around the shore of Rainy Lake as well as the fishery at the falls. Alexander Henry the Elder recognized the importance of this resource in 1775, noting that "the rice grows in shoal water, and the Indians gather it by shaking the ears into the canoes." By the 1790s, traders in the Rainy Lake Region paid close attention to each year's crop and waited expectantly for the native harvest in late summer. High water levels could have a devastating effect on the rice, and a poor harvest could lead to starvation in the winter. The traders' dependence on rice nearly rivaled that of the Ojibwe, who were known to withhold rice from commercial sales and retain it for their own subsistence when stocks were low. As late as 1833, traders at Fort Frances faced a food shortage after a poor rice crop the preceding year. An English traveler remarked that the fort had neither meat nor fish owing to the scarcity of rice, which was "generally abundant at this solitary station, growing in the swampy ground around the lake." Despite these hardships, the traders managed to keep their posts occupied even in years when the rice crop failed.

Wild Rice in the Provisioning Trade The water was again extremely high above Lake Ounipique particularly within the American Territories, from which not a grain of rice was procured...From Plantation Island we got 58 Bushels of very bad corn which is all the provisions we could get from the Indians. Sturgeon has entirely failed in this river. The Indians made none for themselves, nor did they trade a mouthful with the traders. I could give Mr. McMurray only half the quantity that was required for his post (Bois Blanc)...I gave no grain to Clouston's Altho' he always had a share for White Fish Lake. Mr. Bouck got only ten kegs which is half the usual allowance. however He stands a pretty good chance of getting as much more from his Indians, as they have all some corn hid for themselves, which they will no doubt trade in the first drunken frolic they will make either with Bouck or the Americans. —J. D. Cameron, quoted in Tim E. Holzkamm, "Ojibwe Horticulture in the Upper Mississippi and Boundary Waters."

Traders remarked frequently on the abundance of wild rice at certain locations along the well-traveled route between Namakan Lake and Fort Frances. The inlets and ponds along New Portage were especially productive. Alexander Mackenzie described this area as "a swamp, or overflowed country, where wild rice grows in great abundance." Stephen Long wrote that "Small Lakes or pools and swamp abounding in wild rice" were frequent on this portage. Nicholas Garry, traveling westward across New Portage in 1821, described the first section as beautiful in character, with "white water lilies, high grass, underwood and wild rice growing in the water." As the swamp lengthened, however, he became less impressed. "The Annoyance of the Musquitoes was dreadful from which we suffered for nearly an Hour, the Distance of the Swamp being about two miles, the Course tedious and difficult." Gabriel Franchere had a similar experience crossing New Portage in mid-summer of 1813, finding the "streams impeded with wild rice, which rendered our progress difficult, now traversing little lakes, now passing straits where we scarcely found water to float our canoes." In 1847, a sportsman by the name of Frederick Ulric Graham traversed New Portage, poling his canoe through "several little stagnant swampy creeks, full of wild rice and frogs."

Wild rice grew in shallow bays along Rainy Lake's deeply indented shoreline. West of Brule Narrows, Joseph Delafield sighted numerous fields of rice with wigwams pitched on the higher ground nearby, indicating to him that the Indians "were eagerly waiting the harvest time." The rice fields around Rainy Lake were all the more important because the plant became scarce to non-existent in the prairie country to the west.

Ojibwe Agriculture

The Ojibwe of the Rainy Lake Region raised corn and potatoes. Their agricultural pursuits were near the northern limit of Indian agriculture in North America. Their use of these products appears to have originated in the nineteenth century and to have increased in the latter part of the century. Anthropologists have found that Ojibwe garden agriculture spread quickly in the Upper Mississippi River Region in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, and the phenomenon seems to have spread into the Rainy Lake Region by the 1850s, if not before.

Anthropologists Tim E. Holzkamm and Leo G. Waisberg have argued that the Ojibwe adopted horticulture in the 1800s to augment their diversified subsistence resource base. Holzkamm and Waisberg focused on the Ojibwe band that occupied the country around Lake of the Woods, but suggested that the patterns revealed for this band were characteristic of other bands of Ojibwe in northwestern Ontario. Of particular interest to Holzkamm and Waisberg were the several "garden islands" in Lake of the Woods. They concluded that horticulture appeared in this area by the 1820s, and developed into a significant part of the Ojibwe subsistence economy in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Much of their evidence came from the 1870s and later.

Horticulture may have developed later and to a lesser extent among the Ojibwe in the Rainy Lake Region, owing perhaps to the greater abundance of wild rice in this region compared to the area around Lake of the Woods. The post journals contain numerous references to Indian corn, but it appears that this food was either grown at the fort (the English referred to "Indian corn" even when they grew it themselves) or procured from Ojibwe sources to the west of Rainy Lake House. The earliest known mention of Ojibwe horticulture in the near vicinity of Voyageurs National Park is that of the Reverend Peter Jacobs, who was impressed by the Indians' potato crops on islands in Namakan Lake. "The islands on the Nahmaguun," Jacobs wrote, "possess good soil for cultivation; and some of the Indian families have raised a good quantity of potatoes, which they barter to the traders for goods." Probably these gardens were fairly new, or they would have been mentioned by earlier travelers. The only other probable reference to Indian horticulture dates from 1870. Josiah Jones Bell, a member of the Red River Expedition, remarked that "there was something very like corn growing" near the point that the New Portage route met Rainy Lake. Elsewhere on the same portage he saw "a log shanty."

Agriculture and Livestock around the Forts

Traders did not rely solely on the Indians for vegetables and grain; they also grew vegetable gardens and sowed various types of grain themselves. (Traders did not, however, harvest wild rice on their own.) They grew hay and raised horses, cows, hogs, and chickens. While numerous rice beds and some Ojibwe gardens were located within the present boundaries of Voyageurs National Park, non-Indian agriculture was probably limited to the immediate vicinity of posts east and west of the park.

Livestock and agriculture at Rainy Lake The Calves are in pretty good order. The Horses are very weak but still continues to do a little, we have got all the potatoe Ground planted and I hope we shall be able to finish all of the other ground which are worth[while], notwithstanding the state of the Horses, a little piece of it looks very indifferent, so that I don't mean to reach the Horses too far for the sake of it, as perhaps that would be the means of preventing them to be able to do any thing to it in the fall, this piece I mean to manure, as soon as the Horses is in a State able to work as also to plow it & by that means I expect that it will give a fine Crop next year. The wheat sown on the 28th April looks well at present, we had a little rain lately which has done much good to the ground. —Donald McPherson to Lord Selkirk, May 25, 1817, Selkirk Papers

The employees of the North West Company may have been the first to introduce European grains in the Rainy Lake Region. Gabriel Franchere noted the existence of cultivated fields and domestic animals around the company's Rainy Lake House in 1813. When the Hudson's Bay Company re-established a presence in the area in 1816, the men planted 40 acres of wheat, potatoes, oats, and barley around the new fort and had a substantial farm within two years. The wheat crop harvested in the fall of 1817 was milled into flour in a nearby mill. By 1823, the farm was flourishing. Stephen Long noted that the Hudson's Bay Company raised Indian corn and other "culinary vegetables," which were consumed by the men at the fort. William H. Keating listed the products of the farm as wheat, potatoes, maize, peas, beans, pumpkins, and water and musk melons. The farm itself was located some distance from the house, although it is not clear where.

The Hudson's Bay Company farm at Fort Frances continued to thrive in the 1840s and after. The geologist Charles Whittlesey described a "large farm" on his visit in 1848. He remarked that the hay and wheat looked good, and the potatoes and oats were "equal to any." The ground was too wet for corn. At this time, it seems, the fort obtained its corn from Vincent Roy, the son of the retired North West Company employee by the same name who had a farm at the Little Fork (below Fort Frances on the Rainy River). G. L. Huyshe of the Red River Expedition gave a similar impression of the farm in 1870, stating that the fort had a few acres of wheat, barley, and Indian corn, "all of which looked remarkably well."

Horses were probably the first domestic animals that traders kept at the fort. In 1804, the North West Company stocked a number of horses at Rainy Lake, allowing the animals to roam freely around the vicinity of the fort. In 1816, the North West Company had ten horses and a colt at Rainy Lake. Post trader Donald MacPherson noted that several horses were brought up from Fond du Lac and offered for sale in 1817. The North West Company purchased 13, while MacPherson tried to buy some for the Hudson's Bay Company and was refused. Post trader John D. Cameron mentioned pigs as early as 1825 and two young heifers in 1829. By this time there were a great number of dogs at the fort. In August 1829, the dogs were in such a starving condition that they attacked and devoured part of a hog while the animal was still alive–much to the disgust of the men, who put the hog out of its misery and then killed six dogs out of concern for the other livestock. By 1837 there were a large number of horses and cattle at Fort Frances. In 1870, Huyshe reported that were about 20 head of cattle, which required a "vast amount" of hay during the long winters.

The post journals contain few details about how these animals were kept. Occasional references to the construction or maintenance of stables suggest that the animals were afforded some shelter although the location of these outbuildings in relation to the palisade is unclear. Probably horses, cattle, and hogs were not penned for much of the year. The post journal for June 21, 1829 contains the remark that "Lafrenier made a Fence to allow the horses, and Cattle to go to the Stable to be under Shelter from the Flies which are numerous." In the summer of 1837, when hundreds of Indians gathered near the fort for the Medicine Ceremony, the fort's stockman expressed concern for the animals' safety.

Burial Grounds

Traders made scant references to burial grounds. Evidence was found of only a few burial grounds in the Rainy Lake Region, none of them in Voyageurs National Park.

Nicholas Garry, an official in the Hudson's Bay Company, noted a "burial place" of a solitary voyageur who was said to have starved to death. The site was located on the Swampy River to the east of Lac des Mille Lacs (well east of the national park). It was marked by a cross. On the same trip, Garry saw numerous other crosses marking the graves of voyageurs who were buried at Portage des Morts. The place, Garry wrote, took its name from the number of fatal accidents that had occurred nearby.

Donald MacPherson, the Hudson's Bay Company's post trader at Rainy Lake in 1817-1818, drowned in a canoe accident in the early part of 1819. MacPherson was buried in a grave near the fort. The post journal indicates that a funeral service was held at the grave site, followed by a gathering at the officer's house immediately afterward. This suggests that the grave site was close to the fort. No other record of the location of MacPherson's grave, indeed no other reference to the grave at all, was found.

G. L. Huyshe and Justin Griffin both give accounts of an Ojibwe burial ground located at Fort Frances in 1870. Apparently it was no longer in use by that time. Huyshe wrote that it was located at the portage around the falls at Fort Frances and appeared as a large field covered with a luxuriant growth of grass. Some of the bodies were buried in the ground "in the usual way." For example, a child's grave had been neatly fenced and a child's paddle and toy canoe were placed by the grave marker. Other bodies were placed in coffins that stood on a platform six or seven feet above the ground. The platform itself was held up by four stout stakes. Huyshe stated that the latter method was used for the "great chiefs," but he also noted that some chiefs were buried in the ground. Both Huyshe and Griffin were informed that the custom was to place the corpse in the coffin with the deceased's gun, kettle, and other valuables.

A government survey of the Hudson's Bay Company's reserve at Fort Frances in 1874 made note of a cemetery located between the fort and the Hudson's Bay Company's farm. An unofficial survey map gave the extent of the cemetery as 10 acres. In 1984, a backhoe operator uncovered human burials in this vicinity in the course of breaking ground for a parking lot adjacent to the Boise-Cascade Mill. Subsequent archeological investigation, headed by Grace Rajnovich of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, resulted in the recovery of remains of at least thirteen individuals. Rajnovich concluded that most of the burials dated to the period 1840-1880, although some of the burials perhaps dated to an early period from 1817 onward. The cemetery evidently included servants of the Hudson's Bay Company and their families as well as citizens of the nascent community of Alberton (now Fort Frances, Ontario).

Table of Contents | Introduction | Rainy Lake Region | Fur Trade Experience | Material Culture | Natural Environment | Bibliography