LaSalle Chronology

To place LaSalle into his Michigan historical context, here is a chronology of events in and around Michigan involving him. Remember, during his time what would become Michigan and the other Great Lake states was a complete wilderness, sparsely peopled by Indian tribes and frequently visited by war parties, by far the most dangerous being the Iroquois. LASALLE'S FIRST SIGHT OF MICHIGAN -1679 In his book LaSalle: The Life aand Times of an Explorer, author John Upton Terrel describes LaSalle's first sight of Michigan: "On August 10 the Griffon stood into the Strait of Detroit. All marveled at the beauty and richness of the country which reached away on each side of the passage. Groves of black walnut and wild plum trees and oaks festooned with grape vines stood like islands in the fine prairies." (Cadillac did not land at Detroit until 1701). LASALLE AT THE STRAITS OF MACKINAC-1679 After surviving a storm on Lake Huron the Griffon arrives at the Straits. The eminent historian Francis Parkman in his 1879 book, LaSalle and the Discovery of the Great West, describes the arrival of the Griffon: "...and now her port was won, and she found her rest behind the point of St. Ignace of the Michilimackinac, floating in that tranquil cove where crystal waters cover but cannot hide the pebbly depths". BUILDING FT. MIAMI-1679 LaSalle in the Griffon sailed on to Green Bay where the ship was loaded with furs and sent off to Niagara. Then LaSalle headed south. According to Parkman: "He pushed on...circling around the southern shore of Lake Michigan, till he reached the mouth of the St. Joseph, called by him the Miamis...It was the first of November. Winter was at hand, and the streams would soon be frozen." Here he waited for his second in command, Tonty, who was coming down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Parkman goes on: "The men clamored to go forward, urging that they should starve if they could not reach the villages of the Illinois before the tribe scattered for the winter hunt. LaSalle was inexorable...The men grumbled but obeyed; and to divert their thoughts, he set them to building a fort of timber on a rising ground at the mouth of the river...They had spent twenty days at the task, and their work was well advanced, when at length Tonty appeared." UP THE ST. JOSEPH RIVER TO THE SOUTH BEND PORTAGE - DECEMBER 1679 Parkman describes the ascension of the St. Joseph River and the portage to the headwaters of the Kankakee River as follows: "On the third of December, the party re-embarked, thirty-three in all, in eight canoes, and ascended the chill current of the St. Joseph, bordered with dreary meadows and bare grey forests. When they approached the site of the present day village of South Bend, they looked anxiously along the shore to their right, to find the portage or path leading to the headwaters of the Illinois. The Mohegan was absent, hunting; and, unaided by his practiced eye, they passed the path without seeing it." LaSalle went looking for the portage path, got lost and had to spend the snowy night in the woods alone. It wasn't until four the next afternoon that he found his way back by following the river. Parkman goes on: "The Mohegan had rejoined the party before LaSalle's return and with his aid the portage was soon found." The expedition then crossed the portage and launched their canoes in the marshes which were the headwaters of the Kankakee River, then went down the Kankakee to the des Plaines River. The joining of these two rivers forms the Illinois River which they followed south to about present-day Peoria where they built another fort. They spent the rest of the winter working on a ship to be used to explore the Mississippi. LaSalle decided to return to Fort Miami so with a party of four Frenchmen and the Mohegan they headed back north on the Illinois. From my "The Search for the Route of LaSalle's 1680 Walk Across Michigan": "Their journey began on March 1, 1680. Attempts to canoe up the Illinois were mostly frustrated by ice. Sometimes they had to haul the canoes across the snow like sleds. Finally they hid the canoes on an island somewhere near present-day Joliet, Illinois, and slogged cross-country through drowned prairie until they reached Lake Michigan. They then walked the beach along the Lake Michigan shore, arriving at Fort Miami on March 24." WALKING ACROSS LOWER MICHIGAN - SPRING 1680 I have already covered that trip from the St. Joseph River to the Detroit River to Niagara in detail. DOWN MICHIGAN'S SUNSET COAST - FALL 1680 Returning from Niagara to the Illinois country in the fall of 1680; LaSalle, with 12 men in three canoes, traveled from Michilimackinac down the east shore of Lake Michigan. On their way to the St. Joseph River they passed the mouths of the Betsie, Manistee, Pere Marquette, White, Muskegon, Grand, Kalamazoo, and Black Rivers. On this trip they would have passed the temporary grave of Father Marquette, who died on this shore five years previously, probably at the mouth of the river which bears his name. Their route to the Illinois country was again up the St. Joseph to the portage to the Kankakee headwaters at South Bend. BACK TO FORT MIAMI - JANUARY 1681 On his return trip up the Illinois River LaSalle and his men found the Kankakee frozen so they slogged cross country to Lake Michigan and up the shore to Fort Miami where they spent the rest of the winter. BY SNOWSHOE AND SLED ACROSS BERRIEN COUNTY - MARCH 1681 LaSalle, his aid LaForest, and 15 men left Fort Miami to go rendezvous with several Indian tribes, hoping to forge an alliance against the Iroquois. Since the rivers were still frozen and snow covered, they walked on snowshoes from the mouth of the St. Joseph River into present-day Indiana, pulling their canoes on runners like sleds. My Note: How about a " LaSalle Snowshoe Challenge" next winter? On the beach on snow from St. Joe to Michigan City.........(Kruger Sea Winds wouldn't need runners). TO MICHILIMACKINAC - SPRING 1681 After meeting with his Indian allies in present-day Indiana, LaSalle returned to Fort Miami and then canoed up to Michilimackinac along the east shore of Lake Michigan, the reverse of his trip in the fall of 1680. From there he went all the way back to Montreal. BACK TO FORT MIAMI - LATE FALL 1681 LaSalle led a large convoy of cargo canoes through Lake Ontario to the site of present-day Toronto. From there, instead of going on west in Lake Ontario, portaging around Niagara Falls and returning to the upper lakes via Lake Erie, he took two weeks to portage from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron, then proceeded to Michilimackinac. My Note: This has always seemed to me to be the hard way to get from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron, especially with heavily-laden cargo canoes. Maybe he was avoiding Iroquois war parties. Verlen Kruger never made that portage. He was considering doing it during his Paddle-to-the-Sea trip that never panned out. From Michilimackinac the convoy of canoes went down the east shore of Lake Michigan, arriving at the River of the Miamis (St. Joseph River) and Fort Miami during the first week of December, 1681. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE GULF OF MEXICO AND BACK TO FORT MIAMI AND MICHILIMACKINAC - 1681 & 1682 On this trip of discovery, LaSalle did not go up the St. Joseph River and use the portage to the Kankakee, but rather canoed along the south shore of Lake Michigan in bitter December weather to the Chicago Portage to get to the des Plaines River and the Illinois River. After exploring the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and having survived a serious illness on the return trip, he was back in Fort Miami by August of 1682. When he arrived, there were several hundred Indian lodges along the banks of the St. Joseph. In the early fall he went on to Michilimackinac, even though he had not yet fully regained his health. In late fall he returned to the Illinois country. LASALLE HEADS BACK TO FRANCE - 1683 Taking only six men in three small canoes, LaSalle set out for Quebec. He went by way of Lake Michigan, the Straits, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River to Lake Erie. LASALLE'S LAST SIGHT OF MICHIGAN When the three canoes entered Lake Erie and turned eastward towards Niagara, Michigan faded from view to the west. The Michigan shore of Lake Erie at the mouth of the Detroit River is where LaSalle in the sailing ship Griffon first saw Michigan in 1679. It is also the place where he ended his cross-peninsula trek in 1680. EPILOG Author Russel McKee, in his 1966 book Great Lakes Country tells about the remainder of LaSalle's career and life after he left Michigan: "...he soon set sail for France to gain the King's ear. This time Louis XIV paid heed when LaSalle spoke. The explorer captured the court with his New World tales, and captured the King's interest with information about the vast colonial empire awaiting French development. Louis supplied a small army of soldiers and settlers, telling LaSalle to move his colony into the Gulf of Mexico. With four ships, the company sailed in the fall of 1684. In the Gulf, LaSalle knew he was in danger both from the Spanish, who claimed the adjacent land, and from hostile Indians. Without meeting either, he established a colony in December 1685 near the present site of Galveston, Texas,after failing to find the Mississippi on the coastal journey west. The settlement was a disaster. LaSalle landed with 180 soldiers and settlers, and in a little more than a year, the total had dwindled to 40. Those who remained were mutinous. Heat, barren land, poisonous snakes, and the failure of expected supplies, all cut into the colony. Realizing his only hope was in French Canada, LaSalle decided to push east to find the Mississippi. He would go up that river, he decided, to obtain help for the colony. With a small force he headed east." He never made it. Somewhere in South Texas in March of 1687, he was murdered by one of his own men. He was 43 years old.

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side IX

Finishing my 1999 "Michigan History" article: The construction of the canoe required cutting down a large elm tree---a formidable task with the hatchets the party were carrying. It was also challenging to strip the bark from the tree in one piece without breaking it or cracking it to the point where it would be unusable. The tree would have been either a slippery elm or an American elm. LaSalle, who called the tree by its Iroquois name of arondugalte recorded, "The bark of which can be stripped off at all times though with more difficulty at this season, when it must be continually moistened with boiling water". To make a canoe from a large cylinder of elm bark, the ends are squeezed together and sewn with strips of bark or roots; gunwhales of saplings, split or whole, are attached in the same manner. Then stick thwarts are inserted at intervals to spread the bark, and ribs of some flexible wood are inserted on the inside. Finally the insides of the ends are caulked with the bark of dead slippery elm, which swells when wet. Why not build a birchbark canoe? The Huron lies below the southern limit of where the paper birch grew. Although a birchbark canoe is far superior in most respects to a canoe of elm or hickory bark, its construction takes a lot of time, skill and experience---which neither LaSalle nor his men possessed. With the canoe completed and the sick men and all gear on board, the journey down the Huron began. All did not work out as hoped. As LaSalle described the trip, "For as the river was everywhere encumbered by heaps of wood, which the swollen waters carry down or cast into its bed, we got weary of carrying our baggage every moment when the masses of wood prevented the canoe from passing; moreover the river made wide bends, and we observed after five days of rowing we had made less progress than we normally made in one day's march." So they gave up on floating down to Lake Erie and, according to LaSalle, "...our sick men being better, we resumed our march and reached the strait by which Lake Huron falls into Lake Erie which is a league broad at this place". The "strait" is the Detroit River and LaSalle and his men reached it downstream of Grosse Isle and upstream of the extensive swamps and marshes where the Huron empties into Lake Erie. Here the Detroit River is more than three miles wide, which is reasonably consistent with LaSalle's estimate. A little arithmetic can provide a clue as to where the men abandoned their canoe and resumed walking. LaSalle equated five days on the Huron to one day's march, and one can assume a day's march to be about thirty miles. This about the distance from Dexter to the area near Belleville where the Huron makes a big bend to the south (French Landing). I think this is where the party gave up poling, paddling and portaging. They would have followed the left bank of the river on foot down to about present-day Rockwood. By heading straight east from there they would have avoided the drowned lands at the mouth of the Huron and reached the Detroit River south of Grosse Isle. There two men were tasked to build a canoe and head north to Michilimackinac, while LaSalle and the remaining three rafted across the river. They continued cross country to the shore of Lake Erie, probably just beyond Pte. Pelee, where another canoe was built. Then the Frenchmen and Saget, the Indian, paddled along the shore to Niagara. They arrived there on Easter Sunday, April 22, 1680. As Professor Prator concluded more than half a century ago, "We shall probably never be able to retrace the great Frenchman's steps with absolute accuracy". There is no archaeological evidence and only LaSalle's one letter documenting the trip. However, given the availability of modern topographic, presettlement vegetation and soil survey maps, we have far better technical resources at our disposal than did earlier writers. Further, if one conducts serious on-the-ground reconnaissance, visualizes things as they were three hundred years ago and carefully matches LaSalle's descriptions to the existing terrain, it is possible to retrace his steps with reasonable accuracy. Finally, we do know one other thing----LaSalle and his companions crossed the Lower Peninsula the hard way. This is the end of my 1999 article. I will follow up with some remarks on his route pertinent to the Relay idea and a chronology of LaSalle and Michigan's history.

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side VIII

Continuing from my 1999 article in "Michigan History" While struggling across the wetlands, the French party experienced an early April cold snap that brought trouble. According to LaSalle, "At last there came an unusually cold night on the second of April, and next day we were obliged to thaw our clothes before a fire in order to be able to use them, for they had become stiff as sticks because we had taken them off all soaked." The fire gave them away to the Mascouten war party that had been tracking them. LaSalle continued: "Our fire showed us to the Indians who had slept on the other end of the marsh, from which they ran with loud cries to about the middle, where there was a rather deep stream which they could not cross, because the ice that had formed during the night was not strong enough to bear them". When LaSalle wrote that the Mascoutens were "...at the other end of the marsh", that meant the Indians were ahead of them and across a stream that LaSalle's party had yet to cross. The description of a "rather deep stream" sounds like something bigger than the creeks they had been crossing. The stream must have been flowing across their easterly path in order for it to be a barrier to the charging Mascoutens. In this area, the Grand River flows from south to north, is bordered on both sides by marshes or swamps and is quite deep, especially when it floods. How did the Mascoutens, who had been tracking LaSalle for several days, end up ahead of him? There were two Indian trails that allowed the Indians to bypass LaSalle's party on either the north or south. The Mascouten's believed LaSalle's party was a band of Iroquois. What better spot to set an ambush than where the hunted ones would be struggling to cross a river in flood? LaSalle described his party's reaction when the Mascoutens charged and were stopped by the ice and river."We went to within gunshot of them; and either they were frightened by our position of advantage and our firearms, or believed there were more of us than there were, or else recognizing that we were Frenchmen, they did not wish to attack us". The two groups then palavered across the intervening water, the Indians saying they were "brothers" to the Frenchmen. The Mascoutens departed and LaSalle's party continued on their journey. On April 4 two of the Frenchmen became so ill that they could not walk farther. LaSalle does not describe the terrain traveled on April 3 and 4, but if the party continued in the same direction these two days there would have been more walking in marshes. Even today, there are extensive marshes between the Grand River and the highlands of northwest Washtenaw County, particularly the Portage Lake Swamp in the Waterloo State Recreation Area. After April 4 LaSalle gave no more dates until he arrived at Niagara on April 22. When the party reached the Huron River they built an elm-bark canoe. It is unclear when he found the Huron River, how long it took to build the canoe or when it was launched on the river. Nor does LaSalle's narrative offer any clue on how the two sick men got from the place where they became incapacitated to the site where the canoe was constructed. According to LaSalle, "I went to look for some stream which might fall into Lake Erie, where we wished to go, to make a canoe, so as to relieve those who were worn out with toil". This sounds as if he went ahead and left his companions and found the Huron River. LaSalle probably came to a well-used Indian trail adjacent to present-day Island Lake in Washtenaw County's Lyndon Township. At that juncture of time, place and circumstances he would have had no hesitancy in traveling on an Indian trail. It headed in the right direction and following it for eight or nine easy miles took him to the Huron River. Today this trail is Island Lake Road and it reaches Mill Creek near where the creek joins the Huron River at Dexter. NEXT: Building the canoe

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side VII

Continuing from my 1999 article in "Michigan History":

The next piece of the puzzle of LaSalle's route is the location of the fens and marshes through which they struggled. In the early spring the trees and shrubs were leafless and there was flooding everywhere from melting snows. Since LaSalle's journey occurred before the southern Lower Peninsula was logged, drained and plowed, the water table was much higher than it is today.

A cursory reading of LaSalle's account or the reading of secondary sources leaves the impression that the party waded through one vast swamp (wetland with trees) or marsh (wetland with sedges and rushes). Actually, they faced a series if marshes and swamps interspersed with higher and drier uplands, ridges and knolls.

LaSalle encountered this series of wetlands after crossing the floodplain of the Battle Creek River, probably near Pennfield northeast of Battle Creek. Going east today across the northern tier of townships in Calhoun County there are several tributaries of the Battle Creek River that flow to the north or northwest. At Duck Lake the tributaries of Rice Creek flow south or southwest. Further eastward lies the divide between the Kalamazoo River drainage basin and that of the Grand River. Continuing eastward, there are two northward flowing tributaries of the Grand River and then the Grand its self. Lowlands that must have been flooded swamps or marshes in the spring of 1680 border all these streams.

U.S. Department of Agriculture soil maps aid in determining the extent and nature of some of these wetlands. These maps show in great detail the types of soil and provide data on the slopes of the land and susceptibility to flooding and ponding, plus water table relationships. The key soil type is muck. Where muck exists today, marshes existed earlier. The maps identify and locate other types of soil subject to frequent flooding or with such a high water table that the land is unsuitable for septic tanks and drain fields. Soils that are flood-prone or water saturated today were wet and flooded during the spring high water in the late seventeenth century.

Highlighting the mucks and the flood-prone soils creates a mosaic that represents a birds-eye view of the wetlands and the intervening dry land over which the LaSalle party traversed. The longest stretch of marsh that the men waded through was twelve miles of almost continuous lowland, located today in Calhoun County's Convis, Lee and Clarence Townships. Interstate 69 crosses the west end of this stretch about one and one half miles north of the N Drive North exit.

NEXT: Ambush

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side VI

Continuing from my 1999 article in "Michigan History"

LaSalle recorded that on the evening of the twenty-eighth (of March 1680) the party camped on the edge of a prairie where they had encountered the Pottawatomies. Certainly one day's march across easy, open terrain by LaSalle's veterans should have taken them far beyond Grand Prairie. The next prairie the men encountered as they moved east was Gull Prairie, a distance of about sixteen miles beyond the Paw Paw River valley. This would have been a relatively easy march for LaSalle's men except for having to cross the Kalamazoo River.

LaSalle makes no mention of crossing a river on March 28. In fact, he fails to record the crossing of any of the sixteen rivers and creeks he and his men would have encountered between the St. Joseph and the Huron Rivers. The only information in LaSalle's account about building a raft and crossing a river comes from the first day when the party left from Fort Miami and the last day at the Detroit River. Nevertheless, the building of a raft and the crossing of the Kalamazoo would have taken perhaps half a day. But March 28 was not an ordinary travel day. Not only had LaSalle's men come out of the Paw Paw River flood plain, but the open land was rich with game. The men were too busy shooting, butchering, fire building, cooking and eating to make much progress that day. This proves to me that when they camped on the edge of a prairie it was at Grand Prairie (west of today's Kalamazoo), certainly not Prairie Ronde about thirteen miles south, and probably not at Gull Prairie on the other side of the Kalamazoo River.

Clues about where they crossed the Kalamazoo River come from topographic maps and the reminiscences of early Kalamazoo settlers. There was a ford across the river in what is now the city of Kalamazoo, less than a mile north of where the river changes direction from west to north. Riverside Cemetery on the east side of the river is adjacent to the site of the ford and is due east of Grand Prairie.

Today's muck land on the west side of the river, which extends about three miles north, was, according to one Kalamazoo pioneer, an "...impassable marsh and tamarack swamp, covered with water the year round". Given their narrow escape from the Indians, LaSalle's party would likely have avoided the ford and the Indian trail leading to and from it, as well as the marsh and tamarack swamp. Following the high ground on the west side of the river and going downstream (north) brought them to a logical crossing point right where the Kalamazoo Nature Center is today. If LaSalle and his men crossed at this point and headed straight east, they would have been at Gull Prairie, around present-day Richland.

My Note: The rafts LaSalle and his men would have constructed to cross rivers would have to have been small and relatively easy to lash together from downed trees or large branches found at riverside. No need or time for a Huck Finn float-down-river kind. They probably used poles and shuttled across the river two or three men at a time. During my research I found illustrations of such rafts. They probably just waded across creeks. The raft to cross the Detroit River would have to have been large enough for four men and they would have to have paddled. That must have been a tricky crossing. Back to the article:

Two significant natural barriers---Gull Lake on the north and the flood plain of the Kalamazoo River to the south---would have forced the Frenchmen and their Indian companion to travel straight eastward from Gull Prairie. Travel should have been relatively easy. Although hilly, the route to the east all the way to the Battle Creek River would have led LaSalle through mainly oak savanna and oak forest. (remember, they were setting the grass on fire to cover their tracks).The distance covered on March 29 and 30 along this route measures about twenty-seven miles---a reasonable distance for these two days---given the time it would have taken to make a raft and cross the Kalamazoo River.

On March 30 they "...came to extensive fens which were flooded by thaw, and had to cross them in mud or water up to our waists, and our tracks going deep into the mire revealed us to a band of Mascoutens who wanted to kill some Iroquois." The misconception that caused the Pottawatomies to run off---the belief that LaSalle's band was an Iroquois war party---is the same one that caused the Mascoutens to stalk them. According to LaSalle, "They followed us across these marshes for the three days it took to traverse them; but we made no fire at night, contenting ourselves with taking off our clothes, which were wet, and wrapping ourselves in our blankets on some dry knoll, where we passed the night".

NEXT: Where were the fens and marshes?

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side V

The long discussion of prairies in LWWS IV may have been a sleeper but very important to tying down where LaSalle and his men actually traveled. The following is from my "The Search for Route of LaSalle's 1680 Walk Across Michigan", the narrative/monograph of which LWWS is a condensation. (The parenthetical remarks are mine as of today. I would be delighted to debate them with anyone).

Many authors and historians have speculated on LaSalle's cross-Michigan route in books and magazines and newspaper articles. Many others have written about the journey without speculating on the route. Despite all that has been written over the years, there is but one primary source, LaSalle's single letter written to one of his investors in September of 1680.......

Strangely, the most recent authors' routes are farthest off the mark. By far the easiest to disprove are those in two 1992 publications. The most accurate interpretation in my opinion was one of the earliest, that of University of Michigan Professor Clifford H. Prator in the Spring 1941 issue of Michigan History Magazine, then a scholarly quarterly publication of The Michigan Historical Commission.

Volume III of Charles A. Weissert's Historic Michigan, published in 1928, contains an account of LaSalle's journey across Michigan. He states that "The explorer's route, as far as can be ascertained by notes taken during the journey, lay along the highlands between the Kalamazoo and St. Joseph River valleys" (Wrong). He contends that "there can be no doubt but that he crossed Prairie Ronde and Climax Prairie..." (Wrong again). He identifies the marshy wilderness through which the party waded as "...probably the long, flat tract in the lakes east of Prairie Ronde" (Still wrong).

In referring to LaSalle and his men J.S.Morton, author of Reminiscence of the Lower St. Joseph Valley,written in the 1930's says, "They were the first white men to follow the trail that became later the famous Territorial Road (Wrong).

The 1948 book Michigan--From Primitive Wilderness to Industrial Commonwealth, by Milo M. Quaife and Sidney Glazer, includes a map showing a route through southern Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Jackson and Washtenaw Counties. (Right counties but LaSalle traveled through the northern parts). Their route crosses the Huron River rather than following it and ends well upstream of the mouth of the Detroit River opposite Grosse Isle.(Does not allow for the 5 days down the Huron in a canoe).

In a 1949 article in the Lansing State Journal, history writer Birt Darling used Prator's 1941 Michigan History article in an attempt to show that LaSalle may have traversed southern Ingham County. (A real stretch. Birt liked to "localize" and "romanticize " and "popularize" historical happenings in or near mid-Michigan. I am forever grateful to him though, one of his articles led to my discovery of Hugh Heward and his journal).

In Michigan in Four Centuries, Dr.F.Clever Bald, then Professor of History at the University of Michigan, states that LaSalle's route is not known, "...but he probably passed through the second tier of counties above the the Ohio and Indiana boundaries." The book's map illustrating the route of various French explorers has LaSalle passing through the headwaters of the Kalamazoo, Grand and Raisin Rivers which are in the hills of Southern Jackson and northern Hillsdale Counties. (Way off).

Alberta Powell wrote a book for young Americans, LaSalle, River Explorer, published in 1954. She has LaSalle using a canoe to go up the Kalamazoo River.....(No wonder young Americans are lousy at history).

In his 1955 book, Michigan through the Centuries, Dr. Willis F. Dunbar, then Professor of History at Western Michigan University, states that LaSalle "...probably followed the Indian trail, slightly south of present US 12 as far as Paw Paw and thence to about present Ann Arbor by approximately the route followed by that road." (Wrong. Dr. Dunbar couldn't have read LaSalle's letter and come to such a conclusion.)

Then in his 1959 book, Kalamazoo and How it Grew, Dr. Dunbar says "His exact route is not recorded, but supposedly he followed Indian trails which led him through the prairie lands of southern Kalamazoo County" (Farther off than in his first book. LaSalle deliberately avoided Indian trails).

Certain recent history scholars have grievously misidentified LaSalle's route. In their 1992 book The Atlas of North American Exploration, Professors William A. Goetzman of the University of Texas and Glyndwn Williams of the University of London depict a route that avoids Michigan entirely! They show LaSalle's 1680 journey as following the Kankakee River in Illinois and Indiana and then along the Maume River from present Ft. Wayne, Indiana, to Toledo, Ohio, on Lake Erie. Furthermore, they show the route continuing across the open waters of Lake Erie to reach the Ontario shore. This route neither starts where LaSalle said he started, his fort at the mouth of the present-day St. Joseph River, nor reached where most other scholars and authors agree he reached, the Huron River. (This is an unimaginably bad piece of historical and geographical manure......).

In Anka Muhlstein's 1995 LaSalle, the explorer starts his cross-Michigan journey at Ft. St. Joseph, which did not even exist in 1680. Ft. St. Joseph was established upstream on the St. Joseph River near present-day Niles in 1691. This author also names Detroit, which was not established until 1701, as LaSalle's destination, rather than Lake Erie. However, the map in the book purporting to show LaSalle's route has him going to Lake Erie just north of Toledo. The map so distorts the locations and relationships of rivers that the headwater of the St. Joseph River is shown near Ft. Wayne, Indiana, instead of Michigan's Hillsdale County, an error of at least 60 miles. (Pitiful).

(Are you surprised that Dr. Rosentreter didn't include this part of my monograph in the "Michigan History" article? Most of these authors had PhDs in history).

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side IV

Continuing with my 1999 article in "Michigan History".

LaSalle recounted, "When we had lit a fire on the edge of a prairie we were surrounded by (Pottawatomies), but the man who was on watch awoke us, and we placed ourselves each behind a tree with our guns. The Indians, who are called Ouopous, believed us to be Iroquois, and being convinced that there must be larger numbers of us, since we had not concealed ourselves as they are accustomed to do when they go in small bands, they fled without shooting an arrow". To reinforce the misconception that his band was an Iroquois war party, LaSalle used charcoal from their fire to place marks on tree trunks like those victorious Iroquois used in announcing the taking of scalps and slaves.

To determine LaSalle's route it is important to identify which prairies he and his men crossed the last few days of March 1680. According to the Presettlement Vegetation map, a prairie is an area dominated by prairie grasses and forbs (herbaceous plants) with a tree density of less than one mature tree per acre. One gets the impression from reading Michigan history that Prairie Ronde in southern Kalamazoo County was not only the largest prairie but the only one of real consequence. However, the Presettlement Vegetation map locates forty-nine prairies in the ten-county area it covers. Furthermore, the 1838 Gazetteer of the State of Michigan describes Gull Prairie in northern Kalamazoo County as "the largest body of prairie in the county".

After their escape from the Pottawatomie's, LaSalle's men set fire wherever there was dry grass to obliterate their tracks. In his account of March 29 LaSalle described the prairie they were crossing as being "...four or five leagues broad and so long we could not see the end of it." A league is about 2.75 miles long. This makes the prairie about twelve miles wide. In the early nineteenth century Prairie Ronde was only about five miles across. Certainly the prairies could have been bigger in 1680. They are primarily products of fires that burn off shrubs and tree seedlings, keeping forest encroachment in check. Fewer fires during the 120 years from La Salle's visit until the arrival of the surveyors might explain the difference in the prairies' size. There is another explanation that could justify LaSalle's estimates. Adjacent to Prairie Ronde, Gull Prairie and Grand Prairie were bur-oak openings and oak savannas. Next to those were large and small patches of oak forest. In the case of Gull Prairie, these were far more extensive than around Prairie Ronde. Even Grand Prairie, which was considerably smaller than Prairie Ronde, was surrounded by a significantly larger area of oak openings and savannas.

The Presettlement Vegetation map defines bur-oak openings and oak savannas as having a density of between one and fifteen trees per acre. To a traveler these would seem open and park-like. Some travelers, including James Fenimore Cooper in his "Oak Openings", have likened them to orchards. Even oak forests tend to be quite open and relatively free of underbrush.

If one includes bur-oak openings and oak savannas as part of the prairies LaSalle described, the open country in the Gull Prairie area measures about fourteen miles wide and more than thirty miles from north to south on the Presettlement Vegetationmap. The same exercise in the Prairie Ronde area only measures a width of about nine miles and perhaps twelve from north to south. The Grand Prairie area is about ten miles wide. Considering all these factors, the Gull Prairie area most closely fits LaSalle's size estimate of March 29, 1680.

Given that both Grand Prairie and Gull Prairie are reasonably on line with an easterly exit from the upper end of the Paw Paw River valley, LaSalle most likely did not travel through Prairie Ronde. To have done so would have required a sharp detour to the south.

NEXT: Crossing the Kalamazoo River

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side III

Continuing with my 1999 article in "Michigan History":

LaSalle's party, which included four coureurs de bois and one Native American, a Mohegan Indian named Saget, left Fort Miami on March 25, 1680. According to LaSalle, after crossing the flooded St. Joseph River (then called River of the Miamis) on a raft, the men "...continued our march through the woods, which was so interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days and a half our clothes were all torn and our faces so covered with blood that we hardly knew each other."

Thanks to the efforts of three Western Michigan University Professors, we know what the nature and extent of the forest cover was like three hundred years ago in southwestern Michigan. In 1984 Lawrence G. Brewer, Thomas W. Hodles and Henry A. Raup from the Department of Geography published a map entitled Presettlement Vegetation of Southwestern Michigan. They created the map based on upon field notes of the early-nineteenth-century surveyors who moved through a wilderness little changed from that which existed in the late seventeenth century. As part of their job, the surveyors located and identified the types of trees and terrain that existed in Michigan before it was disturbed by the pioneer's axe or plow.

After two and a half days in the briars and brambles, LaSalle's party came out of the Paw Paw River valley and "found the woods more open". But where?

About sixty years ago (seventy now) University of Michigan professor Clifford H. Prator concluded that LaSalle broke into the open woods somewhere in the northwest corner of Kalamazoo County. Trying to follow Prator's suggested route today takes one into the extensive mucklands in the northeast corner of Van Buren County. In the late seventeenth century this was one big swamp. Furthermore, modern topographic maps and road reconnaissance show the party then would have encountered difficult "knob and kettle" terrain where level land is virtually nonexistent. On the other hand, road reconnaissance around the upper end of the north branch of the Paw Paw River about seven miles south of there leads to the area of the Wolf Lake state Fish Hatchery and east up to high ground--about where Highway M-43 climbs up the ridge known to geologists as the Kalamazoo Moraine. This is close to the Van Buren-Kalamazoo county line. The Presettlement Vegetation map shows that this was a transition area from a southern swamp forest to an oak savanna. This is consistent with LaSalle's account of emerging from the briars and brambles and finding the woods more open.

I believe LaSalle actually traveled through oak savannas and forests and the relatively benign terrain of what is now the northern half of Kalamazoo County's Oshtemo Township (approximately along the route of M-43). If LaSalle and his party were on this route, they would have reached Grand Prairie within an easy five-mile walk after leaving the Paw Paw River valley. Grand Prairie was located just west and northwest of present-day Kalamazoo.

Hunger and the abundance of game made the party careless. The sounds of their guns and the trail of partially butchered carcasses attracted an Indian war party, and nearly led to disaster.

NEXT: Surrounded by Indians.

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side II

Continuing with my 1999 article in "Michigan History":

LaSalle's route across the Lower Peninsula has fascinated authors and historians for many years. There is, however, only one primary source documenting the trip - a letter LaSalle wrote to one of his investors in September of 1680. The text of the letter has been preserved in Pierre Margray's Memoirs et Documents Pour Servir a L'histoire des Origines Francaises des Pays D'outre-mer; Decouvertes et Etablissments desFrancais dans L'ouest et dans le Sud D'Amerique Septenrionale, published in Paris in the 1880s.

LaSalle clearly understood the difficulty facing him. Reflecting in that letter he explained,

Though the thaws of approaching Spring greatly increased the difficulty of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of the journey. . . and the danger of meeting Indians of four or five nations, through whose country we were to pass, as well as an Iroquois army, which we knew was coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from hunger, sleep on the open ground, often without food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage, such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun, powder, lead and skins to make moccasins; sometimes pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered with ice and snow, sometimes wading whole days through marshes when the water was waist-deep or even more, at a season when snow was not entirely melted----though I knew all this, it did not prevent me from resolving to go.

At the time of LaSalle's journey, the southern part of the Lower Peninsula, particularly the area between the Grand River valley and the St.Joseph river valley, was largely deserted. Many local tribes had left the area in fear of the rampaging Iroquois. According to LaSalle, it was a sort of no-man's land. "The Indians do not hunt there because it is situated between five or six tribes which are at war with one another, who, because they fear one another, dare not go to these parts without the greatest precautions; they never appear except with the intention of surprising one another, as secretly as possible."

LaSalle knew he had to travel approximately straight east to reach Lake Erie. He used a magnetic compass to determine direction and an astrolabe, which measures the angle of the sun or North Star above the horizon, to determine latitude. He was unable, however, to determine longitude so he did not know how far it was across the peninsula.

LaSalle was in a hurry. He didn't have time to build or acquire a canoe and take the longer route of going up Lake Michigan to Michilimackinac, then south through Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River to Lake Erie. Going overland through prairies, open oak forests and oak savannas would make for easy traveling, but would leave them exposed to wandering war parties. So LaSalle chose to travel through the Paw Paw River valley. The Paw Paw flows from the east, there were no Indian trails following the river and the southern hardwood forests of the valley made inconspicuous movement possible. The disadvantage was that hiking conditions were atrocious.

NEXT: They are traveling

LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side

In 1999 I wrote an article for "Michigan History Magazine" entitled "LaSalle's Walk on the Wild Side". That was not my choice of title. The title of my work of which the article was a condensation was "The Search for the Route of LaSalle's 1680 Walk Across Michigan", a perfectly respectable and understandable title, I thought. "Not jazzy enough"; said Roger Rosentreter, the magazine's Editor. When I objected, he said that I have to understand that in order for "Michigan History" to avoid the fate of "Michigan Conservation" magazine, once published by the Department of Conservation (now DNR), it has to attract a large and loyal audience and be self supporting. I guess he has a point. "The Michigan Historical Review" put out by the Historical Society of Michigan is a real sleeper. It's "Chronicle" is a little livelier but not up to "Michigan History". At least I got him to add LaSalle's name. His original title was just "A Walk on the Wild Side". He did a lot of other editing that I objected to and for the first time since college I pulled an "all nighter" trying to unfix some of his fixes in time to make the printing deadline. I can see why such Michigan history authors as Kit Lane, Larry Massie and Tim Kent self-publish so they don't have to deal with editors. I am going to serialize that article and add comments and notes pertinent to the LaSalle Relay idea. The article was published in the March/April 1999 issue and is illustrated by a beautiful two-page spread showing the Portage Lake Swamp in the leafless season as it would have looked to LaSalle and his party in 1680. The photo was taken by Rosentreter at my suggestion from the bridge over the upper Portage River on Waterloo-Munith Road. Here we go: On March 24, 1680, after an exhausting three-week journey from a wilderness fort near present-day Peoria, Illinois, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle, arrived at Fort Miami. He had built the small fort the previous fall on a bluff overlooking the mouth of the St. Joseph River, then known as the River of the Miamis. An explorer and entrepreneur whose life's mission was to establish a French commercial empire in the interior of North America, LaSalle learned at Ft. Miami that the Griffon, the sailing vessel he had constructed the previous year on the Niagara River, had disappeared. Desperate to know what had happened to his ship and its cargo of furs, the thirty-seven year old Frenchman decided to return to the Niagara country. LaSalle believed the shortest and quickest way to get there was on foot. Four weeks after leaving Fort Miami, LaSalle and his men reached Niagara. He never found the Griffon---it disappeared without a trace---but he became the first European to cross Michigan's Lower Peninsula. NEXT: The route

Heward's Journal - Paddle Days 13 & 14

Continuing with the Heward Journal to match our Intrepid Four:

Paddle Day 13 - HEWARD SPENDS A WEEK GETTING READY TO START DOWNSTREAM
Wednesday Apl 14th 1790. A rainey Night & wet Morning made it late before we started   in about a mile & half farther up the Run came to the portage which points nearly South or South by West.

My Note: After inspecting the portage Heward decides to return to the Ypsilanti settlement to get more corn. He pays "the Savage" with a gun, a white shirt and a little powder and shot and they head off down an Indian trail which crosses the portage. The Engagee's are left to make the carry of their canoes and goods across the portage. Heward and the Indian guide follow what is now North Territorial Road and Island Lake Road to "the Forks"  where they "camped a Wet Night".

Thursday Apl 15th 1790. Rose early at Day break & set off.

My Note: They waded across Mill Creek "...the Water Mid Waist deep." and followed the trail along the river's right bank back to the Ypsilanti settlement and Indian village. There Heward engaged an Indian with two horses to go back with him the next day. He also thought he had arranged to buy corn, "grease" and sugar.from the settlers. The "grease" would be bear fat.

Friday Apl 16th 1790. Rose at Daybreak & with Mr Godfroy went to find the Indian that he might not drink, found that he had been drinking in the Night & seemed uncertain but still said he would go & sent to hunt his Horses.

My Note: Meanwhile Heward went to the settlers to get his corn and found them loading all their corn in a batteau to send it to Detroit. While arguing with the settlers the Indian showed up half drunk and announced that he loved his horses and that Heward's load would be too heavy for them. Thereupon Heward gave up for the day and the Indians went off to drink all night.

Saturday Apl 17th 1790. The Indians all drunk except the one I had engaged to go & he sleeping.

My Note: It started to rain hard. Heward considered giving up and heading back to Detroit if he couldn't get help. Finally the Indian agreed to go (without his horses and for higher pay) so about an hour before sunset they started up the trail carrying the corn, grease, sugar and a turkey on their backs.

Sunday Apl 18th 1790. A very cold night & I had no Blanket, the Corn being in it.   Traveled very hard this day & camped at Sun Set   another very cold night.  (Charlie will empathize).

Monday---Apl 19th 1790. Arrived at the portage about Mid day   paid the Indian 3 Callo Shirts & some Powder & Ball in full.   Went with Joe to measure the Portage beginning at eh South End with a line of 100 feet English.

My Note: The portage measured 14,100 feet ( 2.67 miles). They blazed several trees to mark the portage.

Heward goes on: I had ordered the Cannots to load & go as far as they were obliged to Walk & hawl them (across Portage Lake Swamp) & wait for us    instead of which they had gone past a point direct South & from thence the Course Westward to the Entrance of another small Lake    was very angry for their obliging me to walk (wade) so far in following.....Camped.

Campsite: Probably on high ground on Waterloo-Munith Road just south of bridge across Portage River.

Tuesday Apl 20th 1790. Snowed the whole Day & remained camped hulling Corn &C.  Unloaded the Cannots   at Night very stormy & a great fall of Snow.

Paddle Day 14 - HEADING FOR THE GRAND RIVER
Wednesday Apl 21 1790.   Snowed & rained all Night & to abo't Eleven oClock   & we loaded & set off.  Discovered that they had given on the Portage in my Absence about 4 lb powder & 2lb Tobacco. (to whom?)   Went down the channel a current serpentine bordered by a small Lake on each side (Little Portage Lake?)   Course to West & passed a Small Lake to South (Big Portage Lake?)   'til about 1 oClock & came to a bluf point at the entrance of Another lake   on the North point at this place there entered another Run from the North out of a Bay surrounded with Pine   & I went around to see its Course which came from the due North a passable current about 30 feet wide (Orchard Creek) & both entered into this next Lake   passed the lake with a Current near the Middle a Course West & entered another & steered a Course still West leaving large Bays to the South    at the west end of this lake found two Currents   one the Smallest running North West into a pine
 Bay   the other West by South & passing a high Ground of Oak to the South   passed in this last nearly West to the Entrance of another Lake   & it appearing to be a Stormy Night camped on a Small point to the South.

My Note: Heward here is describing the start of the downstream portion of their journey.  They are leaving the headwaters of the Portage River in the Portage Lake Swamp and going down the upper river, then through the two lakes that make up Little Portage Lake, then Big Portage Lake (now bypassed), then the loop to the north where Orchard Creek comes in, then all the lakes, channels and spreads lost to the channelization of the Portage.

I am quite confident that their campsite that night was a point of land which is now a knoll just southeast of where Hawkings Road crosses the Portage "ditch" on a bridge at the south edge of Section 5 of Leoni Township of Jackson County.

Heward's Journal - Paddle Days 11 & 12

Continuing with Heward's journals to match our Intrepid Four:

Paddle Day 11 - UP THE HURON AND HELL CREEK
Monday Apl 12 1790.  Went with the Indian from our Encampment down again to the Fork leading Nore West & arrived about Mid Day.   proceeded up the Branch which turns more North East about four leagues   the Current very strong & nearly as wide & deep as the other part of the River from Sanscraits Village (in other words, back on the mainstream)
& on a Gravelly Bottom to a Cabbin where it divides into two Lakes   the River at this place about 20 yds Wide & between 4 & 5 foot Water here    one of those Lakes points NoreEast (Base Line Lake) & the other nore West (Portage Lake)   the last we  passed to West nore West which after a Traverse of about a league brought us again into a small Serpentine River (Portage Creek) run'g from the same Direction about 6 Yds wide & about 3 1/2 foot Water to the banks but being overflowed we had 4 or 5 feet Water.
the lake unpassed is about a league each way & seemingly deep where we could see the Bottom it was fine Gravel & Sand (I don't understand that sentence)   as also the River to about 2 leagues up where we encamped late

Campsite:  From personal reconnaissance I believe their campsite was on a knoll on the left bank of Portage Creek where it is crossed by Tiplady Road about a mile and a quarter southeast of Hell. It's about the right distance up the creek and it just looks like a good campsite. Or as Charlie Parmelee would say,"...it says Camp Here..".

Paddle Day 12 - ALMOST TO THE PORTAGE
Tuesday Apl 13th 1790.   Set off then on our Rout West nore West & in about 1/2 a mile it turned nearly North & in a Stream Serpentine the Banks in about every mile varying West Nore west and to North for about 4 leagues (I believe he mixes leagues and miles rather loosely)   the stream here about 4 Yds wide & about 3 feet Water when in the banks   we arrived at another Lake about 1/'2 a mile long & 1/4 mile wide point'g Nore West & South East (No-name lake under Hyland Lake??)    pass'd by the Nore West point from this into Another Small Lake (Halfmoon Lake?) having a Small lake to the Left hand or West Side, (Blind Lake?)   the Lake of our Rout run'g North & South & our Course due North (Watson Lake?)   this Lake but Small abo't 250 Yds Wide   & our course then run'g in the Manner of a Small Lake Nore Nore West,   leaving a Round Lake of about 2 miles round to the North or Right hand (Patterson Lake?)   after the point of this Lake passed on the north
 side of another spreading Lake full of long Grass & Mush Rat houses at the Nore West end of which (Woodburn Lake?) the Serpentine Run took nearly South & doubled around a point with Trees & passed still in the Manner of a Small Lake to the South   from our first Lake today to here about  6 miles    from here about 3/4 of a Mile & the Course turns West Nore West   Continued nearly this Course with many Turnings but where the Stream would not be miss'd about 6 Miles to where the Run enter'd  into another Lake at West. (Williamsville Lake)  this lake runs South East & Nore West about 200 Yds Wide of our Course taking the Turn to the south east.   The Indian here informed me that the carrying place was direct pointing from the Mouth of this Run which is West by South.*   We continued this Course 'till within abo't a 1/4 Mile of a Bay at East (Ellsworth Lake) & then took a turn up the Run which pointed nore West   being late & likely for a bad Night we
 encamped.

*On a topographic map the direction from the outlet of Williamsville Lake to the head of the portage is exactly southwest.

My Note:The size and shape of lakes and waterways have changed since Heward's time. Water tables have been significantly lowered by deforestation and agricultural drainage.

Campsite: There is a point of high and dry land rising from the marshes through which Portage Creek flows about a quarter of a mile upstream from Ellsworth Lake. My guess is that is where they camped that night. It is about the center of Section 5 of Lyndon Township of Washtenaw County.

BIG NEWS - but first, how it all began

In the summer of 1986, after I had retired from the state of Michigan, my family and I were visiting Lansing's "Riverfest." I was attracted to an exhibit by an organization called "Project Lakewell," a group of Voyageur re-enactors complete with costumes and a 36' imitation birchbark canoe made of fiberglass. Having a long-time interest in canoes and Michigan history, it looked like a perfect fit, so I gave them my $15 and became an instant member.

Sometime later I received an invitation to a meeting at the home of the man who portrayed Father Marquette to consider Project Lakewell's involvement in the planning of Grand River Expedition '90. GRE 90 was to be a canoe expedition going down the length of the Grand River to bring attention to the recreational potential of the river and its environmental attractions and problems. The leaders were the famous long-distance canoeists Verlen and Valerie Kruger. Valerie was the planning chairman and ramrod and Verlen was to be the Rivermaster. 

It turned out that as a result of my topographic engineering experience with the Army and the state and my extensive collection of topographic maps that I knew more about the Upper Grand River and its headwaters than any one else in the organization. Thus I became the guru of everything pertaining to the Grand River upstream of Lansing. 

At Liberty Mills, in Jackson County, the site of the first dam on the river, I discovered the Liberty Mills General Store, whose proprietors owned the dam and generating plant and knew everybody in Liberty Township and the headwater environs.

I got to know Verlen and Valerie quite well and they entrusted me with the job of getting historical markers for the Grand and to M.C. the opening ceremonies when the time came for the expedition to start down the river. So with the help of the people at the general store, a large boulder was moved from Bunday Hill - the highest place in the Grand River watershed - to a location adjacent to the dam. Thanks to a lady from Mt. Hope Monument Company who participated in GRE 90, we got the boulder engraved with a message-in-stone about the headwaters.

Also with financial assistance from the Lansing City Council, I arranged for the erection of a State of Michigan historical marker on the Riverwalk in Lansing. The marker told the history of the Grand on one side and the Hugh Heward story on the other.

During the planning for GRE 90 I ran across an article in the Lansing State Journal by Birt Darling about Hugh Heward and his encounter with Indians on the Grand. I went to the library and got the book Birt referenced and became fascinated with Heward's story of his trip from Detroit to the Mississippi by crossing Lower Michigan by canoe. I spent a lot of time working out the route that Heward would have taken. To prove my theories, in June of 1990, Verlen Kruger and Brian Ewert from Ann Arbor put their canoes in the Huron River and worked their way up Portage Creek to Hell. Verlen carried his canoe by the Hell store so I could get a picture of him by the sign - my grandson Adam was with me.

The next week Verlen continued bushwhacking up the creek alone. I remember him coming back down the creek at one bridge where I was waiting, and telling me that he found what looked like a portage head - right where I thought it ought to be. Now if there is anyone who would have known what a portage head looked like, it was Verlen.

We put his canoe on top of my Chevrolet and crossed the height-of-land and the big Portage Lake Swamp and put in in the headwaters of the Portage River.  From there, he paddled down the Portage and into the Grand. I met him at the Maple Grove canoe launch and he reported that it was very difficult to tell when he entered the Grand River, because at that point it is one big swamp. (Heward reported the same thing in 1790 - he didn't know he was in the Grand until he ran into some Indians.)

So for 19 years I've wanted somebody to fill the gap Verlen left between Portage Creek (in the Lake Erie watershed) and the tributary of the Grand. Saturday morning, April 18, 2009, I heard from Neil Miller and Brian Prodin that the waiting is over.

On Friday, April 17, Neil and Brian took on the portage across the Lake Erie/Lake Michigan divide and the wade through the Portage Lake Swamp, duplicating what Hugh Heward and his crew did in 1790. They did this even as the Ultimate Hugh Heward Challengers were launching from Detroit as Hugh did.

This is a very big deal, folks. Historic you might say. The preparations for this effort have been going on below the radar, so to speak. I am so pleased that it has been safely completed. These guys risked their butts in this effort, as did Charlie Parmelee and Doug McDougall last year.

Here is the report I received from Neil that morning, followed by my response:

"Hi Jim,  We completed the Heward Portage in 11 hours from a point 200 meters upstream of McIntyre Lake on Portage Creek to the Munith Road Bridge.  We came ashore about a hundred meters below our intended landing spot on the "island" marked 940 (the north marsh, north of Tophith Road) and had to do 2 hours of serious, arduous bushwhacking.  We had to scout a route through using a Gerber Brush Thinner and surveyor tape and then come back and carry the gear.  We hadn't anticipated such difficulty on that island and even though we had GPS waypoints to go to we had to bushwhack through very gnarly growth.  We used that Gerber tool two more times cutting a path through the Tag Alders to get into clear swamp.

We had planned on two days (and maybe even a third) to make the crossing but we had to force it because we ran out of water. We carried two 50 ounce Nalgene water bottles and we stashed another 80 ounces south of Tophith Road but by 2:00 p.m. we were out.  We just didn't want to pump water out of the marsh so I didn't bring my PUR Hiker.

I will send you a trip summary later today or tomorrow and a complete highly detailed report in the near future, as promised.

We put in at Munith Road then paddled down to Moeckel Road for our pick-up.

Oh, and we managed to get across most private land without incident except on the Schumacher Road Peninsula where the landowner chased us off his property."

Neil Miller

"Neil and Brian,

Congratulations! I'm really proud of you guys and proud of myself for instigating such an effort. Verlen would be proud too. I'll beam a message across the river to him that his 1990 gap has been bridged. You know I can see his grave site from my landing?

Looking forward to the reports and I invite you guys to join in the Hugh Heward Challenge 50 miler from Dimondale to Portland on April 25 or just come to Thompson Field in Portland that Saturday afternoon to be recognized. I am going to buy you an engraved brick for the Verlen Kruger Memorial plaza.

The Ultimate Hugh Heward Challengers left Belle Isle at 9 AM yesterday morning and made it into the Huron River and camped near Rockwood last night. They are on their way upstream this morning.

My cup runneth over and a curse on the Schumacher Road landowner."

Jim Woodruff

thetopologist

On the Grand River

in Delta Township

Heward's Journal - Paddle Day 7

Continuing with Hugh Heward's journal pages, matching progress with UHHC 2009 paddlers to the greatest extent possible:

Heward's Paddle Day 7: YPSILANTI

Thursday Apl 1st 1790. Early in the Morning came to red Cedar under the high Banks & continued with a Strong Current the water by the Banks to nearly Mid Day when we met with several Small pine Trees the banks still high & barren abounding with diminutive Red Oak Trees & the soil with Fern. about 4 oClock passed an Indian Cabbin & Cornfield & arr'd at Sans Craints before Sun Set

(They had arrived at the French settlement and trading post at the site of present-day Ypsilanti. This was at the junction of several Indian trails and could be reached from Detroit either by land trail or by boats on the Detroit and Huron Rivers. Batteaus and pirogues were used as well as canoes.There was also a Huron Indian village nearby. Beyond here the river and trails were mostly unknown to white men) .

Distance & Course nearly as yesterday. Encamped. 

Heward's Journal - Paddle Days 4, 5, and 6

Continuing with Hugh Heward's journal pages, matching progress with UHHC 2009 paddlers to the greatest extent possible:

 

Heward's Paddle Days 4, 5 and 6: STRUGGLING UPSTREAM ON THE FLOODED HURON. NO DAMS TO PORTAGE BUT ALSO NO EASY-PADDLING BACKWATERS

 

Paddle Day 4

Monday March 29th Repaired the Gum of our Cannots & set off with fine Weather only frosty & continued our Rout the River falling but still overflowing the Banks the Course of the River Land & Woods nearly the same our Distance something more it continued Cold Weather that the ice hung on the Branches in the River & passed some flights of Snow before the Sun Set. Encamped.

Campsite: Willow Creek Metro Park?

 

Paddle Day 5

Tuesday March 30th. After a very frosty Night embarked & went the same Course the River still flooding the Banks but more difficult than before at Mid Day arrived at higher Banks & the Course more to the North the Lands somewhat better but cold and barren for Culture abound'g principally with Black Oak. our Distance nearly the same as Yesterday tho' the Current stronger and more difficult than before. Encamped. (Lower Huron Metropark?)

 

Paddle Day 6

Wednesday March 31st. a Frosty Night but clear Morning & fine Weather all Day the water even with the banks very strong and difficult the Course North West. the banks very high & Lands something better still abounding in Black Oak about 2 oClock saw pine Trees below the high Banks continued 'tll Night & Camped. (Belleville?) the Distance as Yesterday.

Heward's Journal - Paddle Days 1, 2, and 3

As as part of my coverage of the Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge 2009 I am going to quote from Hugh Heward's daily journal of his 1790 trip from Detroit to the Mississippi. The Challengers were given a full set in advance of their launch. We dry, warm, comfortable followers will get each one as an email with periodic progress reports, hopefully daily.

 

These words are from the "Journal of a Voyage made by Mr Hugh Heward to the Illinois Country" published in the John  Askins Papers, Volume I: 1747-1795, Edited by Milo M. Quaife, Secretary-Editor, The Burton Historical Collection. Published by the Detroit Library Commission, 1928.

 

The punctuation, capitalization and spelling are Hugh's own. My only editing is the spacing and leaving out certain non-travel related passages. The parentheticals are mine. 

Hugh Heward's Journal - Paddle days 1, 2, and 3: THE FIRST TWO DAYS. NOT A GOOD START

Paddle Day 1

Detroit March 24th 1790 Took my Departure for the Illinois. had much Trouble as Customary in getting Engagee's off in which Hurry we left a Keg of pork behind 'till we got to petite Cote, return'd with one of the Cannots to Babys Mill (a windmill located near the Windsor end of the Ambassador bridge) & then with Duarier walk'd up opposite the Fort & borrowed a Cannot to cross----had just Time to get the Keg and get out the Gate at 9 oClock cross'd & return'd the Cannot & from thence carried the Keg of pork each in his Turn to our Cannot at Mr Baby's Mill, Slept there.

& next morning the 25th very wet & disagreeable we from there joined our other Cannot at Labourses Mill, the Weather so bad we unloaded & I there hired Joseph La Mirand another Engagee' at 40/p Month

My Note: I have never been able to locate the site of Labourse's Mill. It was probably somewhere on right bank of Detroit River, maybe near Wyandotte? Windmills were the main source of power in the Detroit area in those days "...there was a windmill on every point..."

Paddle Day 2

(March 26th 1790) about mid Day the Rain abating we loaded & set off & got to the last Island opposite Brown's Village. the Weather still foggy & Wet----Encamped on the Nore West point of the Island (Celeron Island) & the wind changing to South East the lake surprized us mounting to where we had piled the Guns & were touched some before we got them moved but not to damage

27th at Daylight we loaded to Gain the River Huron but the Wind rose suddenly & detain'd us all day blowing very hard sleep'd there

Paddle Day 3

28th Parted early in the morning & got to the River Huron to breakfast the Wind still strong at West, the River very high and overflowed on all Sides & Current strong we mounted up the River which abounds in Turnings about 25 Miles the general Course Nore West the Land on all Sides in general very low & wet abound'g with Elum Button Wood (Sycamore) &C. the highest Land with oak of a Middle Size. Encamped.

Campsite: Just downstream of Flat Rock?

Charlie's 2008 Odyssey VI

Does Portage Creek deserve to be called a River? (On some old maps it is called Portage River which is confusing since that makes for two Portage Rivers, one in each watershed).   Hugh's Journal April 12 1790 (my "translation"): "We passed the last lake ( Portage Lake) to the west-northwest which, after a traverse of about a league, brought us into a small serpentine river...About 2 leagues up the river we encamped late."   William Atherton was a soldier in the Kentucky Militia who survived the River Raisin Massacre in January of 1813 and was adopted by a band of Indians and taken to their wintering place somewhere in the Grand River valley.  In the spring they constructed canoes (probably of elm bark) to return to Detroit. When they reached the south end of the  portage which Heward and his crew had crossed 23 years earlier Atherton said "...we took up our canoes and carried them three or four miles...the ridge over which we carried our canoes divides the waters between Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. After entering this stream we advanced finely, finding fish in great abundance...This was one of the most beautiful little rivers I ever beheld---"   Charlie's report of April 17 said "I would call it more of a small river than a creek".   My suggestion: Rename the channelized Portage River in Jackson County Portage Ditch and let Portage Creek become Portage River or at least Little Portage River.

Quiet Water Symposium is over...

The Quiet Water Symposium was a big success so far as I could see but the Pavilion was uncomfortably cold. A number of people signed up to get these emails when the Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge starts up April 17. Photo is of me with grandson Adam Tury, who flew in from New York City to attend. 

LaSalle's Elm-bark Canoe II - What the experts say

Continuing from my article in "Wooden Canoe".

 

The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America by Edwin Tappen Adney and Howard I. Chappelle devotes an entire chapter to 'Temporary Craft'. The authors state, " The details of the construction of elm canoes (and of bark other than birch) by the Iroquois are speculative since no bark canoe of their construction has been preserved."

 

They also state that " war parties and hunters often found it necessary to build a temporary canoe, one that could be utilized for a limited water passage and then abandoned."

 

Adney and Chappelle draw from the writings of another 17th Century Frenchman, Joseph Francois Fitau, a description of the Iroquois elm-bark canoe as very coarsely built of a single large sheet of bark, crimped along the gunwale, with ends secured between battens of split saplings. The gunwales, ribs and thwarts were described as " tree branches" implying that the outer bark had not been removed.

 

La Fitau's description is quite similar to LaSalle's, but LaSalle does not mention the crimps. This omission could mean LaSalle did not crimp his elm bark but merely fastened the ends together thus making a canoe with no rocker.

 

The detailed procedures for building an Iroquois elm-bark canoe contained in The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America are primarily based on a 1749 account by a Swedish traveler to North America, Professor Pher Kalm.

 

Among the pertinent details are: 1) In warm weather the bark could be removed without much difficulty, but in the spring or fall it might be necessary to apply heat. 2) If possible the bark was stripped from the standing tree...felling was avoided for fear of harming the bark. 3)The rough outer bark was scraped away; if the builder was hurried, the scraping was confined to the areas being sewn or folded. The bark was then laid on a cleared piece of ground...with the outside of the bark up, so it would be inside the finished boat. 4) One requirement in building these canoes was to crimp the edges of the bark at the gunwales in such a manner that the bottom of the canoe would be rockered and at the same time molded athwartships. 5) Water tightness was insured by merely forcing clay into the stems from the inside, or by forcing in a wad of the pounded bark of a dead red (slippery) elm which would swell when damp.

 

LaSalle's men built the canoe in cold, early April weather. His account says they had to use boiling water to loosen the bark.

 

LaSalle says he had the tree cut down. This was probably necessary to apply the boiling water. Imagine chopping down an elm tree---with only the hatchets they carried---large enough to obtain a single canoe-size piece of bark.

 

It must have been a large canoe. It had to accommodate six men, together with what LaSalle listed as their gear: blankets, clothing, kettles, hatchets, guns, powder, lead, skins to make moccasins ( they were constantly wearing out), snow shoes (which they probably discarded early on), knives and hatchets for trade goods, and of course, food.

 

(My article goes on for several  more fairly technical paragraphs which I will be glad to share with anyone who is interested.).

 

Now back to LaSalle and the fate of his men and their canoe. Ironically, their elm-bark canoe did not serve its intended purpose. As LaSalle said about their journey on the Huron:

 

"...as the river was almost everywhere encumbered by heaps of wood which the swollen waters carried down or cast into its bed, we got weary of carrying our baggage every moment when the masses of wood prevented the canoe from passing, moreover the river made enormous bends..."

 

They finally figured out that in five days of struggling with their canoe on the choked-up river they had made no more progress than one day's march on land. Therefore they abandoned the canoe and walked the rest of the way to the Detroit River.

 

I have self-published a comprehensive, illustrated study of elm bark canoes under the same title as this article. Take a look at it when you visit my display at the Quiet Water Symposium at MSU on Saturday March 7.

 

Erik Vosteen and Kevin Finney, a pair of midwestern primitive technologists, have constructed an elm-bark canoe. The photo above is from their web page. See the whole process at their website: <http://www.burntmud.com/canoe.htm> 

LaSalle's Elm-Bark Canoe

Here is an extract from my August 1997 article in "Wooden Canoe" magazine:

 

                       LASALLE'S ELM-BARK CANOE

         The intrepid LaSalle built an Iroquois-style canoe, but was it worth it?

 

Robert Cavalier, Sieur de LaSalle, was a French explorer and entrepreneur who built the first sailing ship on the Upper Great Lakes. This ship, which he named the Griffon, had the ability to carry large cargoes of trade goods and furs, and was the key to LaSalle's grand plan to develop a French commercial empire in the North American interior.

 

In the spring of 1679 LaSalle set sail from the Niagara River on a journey which took him through Lake Erie, the Detroit River, Lakes St. Clair and Huron, the Straits of Mackinac and finally across Lake Michigan to Green Bay. There he traded for a load of furs and the Griffon, without LaSalle on board, set out for the return voyage to Niagara.

 

LaSalle then set off on a canoe voyage south around Lake Michigan until he reached the mouth of what he called the River of the Miamis (at the site of present day St. Joesph, Michigan), where he built a fort. Then he and fourteen men traveled the St. Joseph-Kankakee river route to the Illinois River, where at the site of present-day Peoria he erected another fort, Crevecoeur.

 

In late March, 1680, LaSalle returned to Ft. Miami to learn that his ship had disappeared---and with it, most of his assets and his hope for future fortune. He decided to hurry back to Niagara and Montreal in an attempt to recoup his losses. On March 25, 1680 he left Ft. Miami with four Frenchmen and a Mohegan Indian hunter, determined to walk across the wilderness of what is now Michigan's Lower Peninsula, something never before attempted by Europeans.

 

After days of bushwhacking through briars and brambles, walking across prairies, wading through seemingly endless marshes, and escaping two Indian ambushes, the party reached the Huron River, a tributary of Lake Erie, at a point somewhere upstream of present-day Ann Arbor. Since two of his men were too sick to walk, LaSalle decided to build a canoe to go down the river.

 

The following description of the construction of the canoe is in his own words:

 

"I found a stream and had a sort of elm cut down which the Iroquois call Arondugalte, the bark of which can be stripped off at all times though with more difficulty at this season, when it must be continually moistened with boiling water and great care must be taken not to break it. The end of the bark is placed inside; the two ends are sewn together, and all along the sides poles are fixed half as thick as one's arm, which are connected by

cross pieces, fastened to them at regular intervals which serve as seats or for the head of the canoe. The bottom part of the bark is strengthened by small floor pieces made of sticks running from one side piece to the other, and if there are any cracks they are filled up with peelings of thin bark which serves as pitch."

 

Why did LaSalle use elm rather than birch bark? The place where the canoe had to be built was south of the area where the paper birch (betula paperifera) grew. Furthermore, even if paper birch trees were available, they might not have been used due to the time and complexity involved in building a birch-bark canoe.

 

Since LaSalle had spent time in Iroquois territory, and since he referred to the particular species of elm that he used by its Iroquois name, it can be assumed that he patterned the canoe on the Iroquois model and used their construction method.

Illustration from Morgan's "League of the Iroquois" 

 

NEXT: What the experts say.