E-PAGE--JESUIT RELATION OF 1662-1663]

{112} This time the Indian canoes struck off into Lake Superior instead
of Lake Michigan, and coasted that billowy inland sea with its iron
shore and shadowy forests. On the northwest side of the lake,
somewhere between Duluth and Fort William, the explorers joined the
Crees, and proceeded northwestward with them, hunting along that Indian
trail to become famous as the fur traders' highway--from Lake Superior
to the Lake of the Woods. The first white man's fort built west of the
Great Lakes, the terrible famine that winter, and the visits of the
Sioux--are all a story in themselves. Spring found the explorers
following the Crees over the height of land from Lake Superior to
Hudson Bay. As soon as the ice loosened, dugouts were launched, and
the voyageurs began that hardest of all canoe trips in America, through
the forest hinterland of Ontario. Here the rivers were a stagnant
marsh, with outlet hidden by dankest forest growth where the light of
the sun never penetrated. There the waters swollen by spring thaw and
broken by the ice jam whirled the {113} boats into rapids before the
paddlers realized. There was wading to mid-waist in ice water. There
were nights when camp was made on water-soaked moss. There were days
when the windfall compelled the canoemen to take the canoes out of the
water and carry them half the time. "At last," writes Radisson, "we
came to the sea, where we found an old house all demolished and
battered with bullets. The Crees told us about Europeans being here;
and we went from isle to isle all that summer." At this time the
canoes must have been coasting the south shore of James Bay, headed
east; for Radisson presently explains that they came to a river, which
rose in a lake near the source of the Saguenay--namely Rupert River.
What was the old house battered with bullets? Was it Hudson's winter
fort of 1610-1611? The Indians of Rupert River to this day have
legends of Hudson having come back to his fort when cast away by the
mutineers.

[Illustration: THE JESUIT MAP OF LAKE SUPERIOR (From the Relation of
1670-1671)]

The furs that Radisson and Groseillers brought back from the north this
time were worth fabulous wealth. The cargo saved New France from
bankruptcy; but the explorers had defied both Church and Governor, and
all the greedy monopolists of Quebec fell on Radisson and Groseillers
with jealous fury. They were fined $20,000 to bui