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choolcraft esquicentennial

Russell W. Fridley

A CENTURY and a half ago, Henrv' R. Schoolcraft dis­ Hennepin, a member of the Sieur de La Salle's expedi­ covered the source of the Vlississippi River to be the tion, reached the only major cataract on the Vlississippi lake we now call Itasca. That event, a perennial favorite and named it the Falls of St. Anthony. in any narrative about Vlinnesota and a frequent topic for During the British regime (176.3-83) the tentacles of many a student's term paper, remains one of the great exploration were intertwined with the , with outdoor "true adventure " stories of our region. The epic activity concentrated along the transcontinental dimensions in which the episode is usually cast seem route that marks the international boundary. The loca­ deserved when one recalls the three centuries it took to tion of the Mississippi's source was still a matter of con­ unlock this geographical mystery. jecture in 1783 when the Treaty of Paris ended the The Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto first saw the American Revolution. Treaty commissioners, unaware lower Vlississippi in 1.541 — 289 years before Schoolcraft that no part of the river lies west of Lake of the Woods, came upon . The quest to find the river's delineated this segment of the Canadian-American fountainhead took on an international flavor because the boundary: "to the said Lake of the Woods; thence Vlinnesota country was a pawn in the geopolitics of the through the said lake to the most northwestern point time. The search was also closely linked to one for a thereof and from thence on a due west course to the northwest passage to the Pacific — an undertaking suc­ river Vlississippi. "' cessfully realized by Alexander Vlackenzie 40 years be­ As the 19tb century approached, British fur traders fore Schoolcraft reached Lake Itasca. of the North West Company, increasingly concerned After De Soto's discovery, more than a century that the United States bad wrested the "voyageur's high­ elapsed before Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jol- way" from them, made one last attempt to validate their liet, under the flag of New , floated down the boundary claim by commissioning an expert map maker Wisconsin River into the upper Mississippi in 1673. to try to determine it. David Thompson, exploring along European geographical knowledge was advanced 4,000 miles in 1797-98, failed to do so but en route another degree of latitude in 1680 when Father Louis declared Turtle Lake in Beltrami County to be the Mis­ sissippi's source. 'Henry Steele Commager, ed.. Documents of American Exploration in the United States intensified after the History, 118 (3rd ed.. New York, 1944). VIore information may of 1803. Just a year after the Lewis be found in William E. Lass, 's Boundary with and Clark expedition headed west. Lieutenant Zebulon : Its Evolution since 1783 (St. Paul, 1980). M. Pike traveled up the Vlississippi in 1805, reaching "Donald Jackson, cd.. The Journals of Zebulon Montgom­ Leech Lake in present Cass County the following year. ery Pike, 1:87, 156n (Norman, Okla,, 1966), He declared it the "main source" of the river and caffed the "upper source."^ Governor of Russell Fridley is director of the Minnesota Historical Society. (for whom the lake was later named)

Summer 1982 83 visited the region in 1820 and reached virtually the same liam Morrison, a fur trader, probably saw Lake Itasca as conclusion as Pike, although be considered Cass Lake early as 1804 but made no official claim until decades the main source. The flamboyant and contentious Italian later, Willard Glazier, best known for a well- adventurer, Giacomo Constantino Beltrami, arrived in orchestrated publicity campaign surrounding his 1881 1823 on the first steamboat to reach . He expedition, proclaimed Elk Lake — like Itasca, in joined the government-sponsored expedition of Vlajor Clearwater County — the true source of the Mississippi. Stephen H. Long, but they parted company in the Red Schoolcraft's discovery of 1832, however, has never been River Valley. With considerable help from a metis seriously contested in more than 1.50 years. guide, he reached Lake Julia in Beltrami County, near What is the significance of the discovery that Lake Thompson's 1798 claim, and named that body of water Itasca is the source of the Mississippi? First, it marked a the source of both the Mississippi and the Red rivers. genuine geographical advance by unrolling more of the , mineralogist on the Cass expedi­ map of the region and adding detailed knowledge about tion, had spotted two little streams entering Cass Lake the upper country. Second, it stimu­ from the northwest. He probably learned from Ojibway lated numerous other expeditions to the Vlinnesota re­ Indians in the area that one stream flowed out of a lake gion during the 1830s and 1840s. Third, it lengthened accessible by canoe. In 1832 Schoolcraft returned with the roll of explorers and significantly added to the travel his own exploring party. From Cass Lake an Ojibway, literature of the area with narratives, reports, and di­ Ozawindib (Yellow Head), led the group through Lake aries. Fourth, it dramatized what local Indian people Bemidji and up a small stream to a swamp. From there and French, British, and American fur traders long had they trekked overland in a southwesterly direction. known — that northern Minnesota was an intricate sys­ As they tramped through the woods on July 13, the tem of interconnected waterways. Fifth, Schoolcraft's excitement rose. Finally, wrote Schoolcraft, "What had discovery and Nicollet's survey laid the basis for the been long sought, at last appeared suddenly. On turning Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which resolved the out of a thicket, into a small weedy opening, the cheer­ controversy over that section of the international bound­ ing sight of a transparent body of water burst upon our ary that bad remained muddled since the Treaty of Paris. view. It was Itasca Lake — the source of the Finally, the discovery of Lake Itasca paved the way for Vlississippi."' the creation, 59 years later, of Vlinnesota's first state park. In 1836 the brilliant French scientist, Joseph N. It is a sesquicentennial worth remembering! Nicollet, visited the area. Giving full credit to School­ craft, he made a detailed, definitive map of the Itasca Henry R. Schoolcraft, Narrative of an Expedition through basin. But others challenged Schoolcraft's claim, Wil­ the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, .56 (New York, 18.34).

A engraving, after a .sketch by Schoolcraft of his camp at Lake Itasca

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