It Is
Called Garden River, And A Little Beyond It, On The Same Side, Lies Garden
Village, Inhabited By The Indians.
It was now deserted, the Indians having
gone to attend a great assemblage of their race, held on one of the
Manitoulin Islands, where they are to receive their annual payments from
the British government.
Here were log-houses, and skeletons of wigwams,
from which the coverings had been taken. An Indian, when he travels, takes
with him his family and his furniture, the matting for his wigwam, his
implements for hunting and fishing, his dogs and cats, and finds a home
wherever he finds poles for a dwelling. A tornado had recently passed over
the Garden Village. The numerous girdled-trees which stood on its little
clearing, had been twisted off midway or near the ground by the wind, and
the roofs had, in some instances, been lifted from the cabins.
At length, after a winding voyage of sixty miles, between wild banks of
forest, in some places smoking with fires, in some looking as if never
violated either by fire or steel, with huge carcasses of trees mouldering
on the ground, and venerable trees standing over them, bearded with
streaming moss, we came in sight of the white rapids of the Sault Sainte
Marie. We passed the humble cabins of the half-breeds on either shore,
with here and there a round wigwam near the water; we glided by a white
chimney standing behind a screen of fir-trees, which, we were told, had
belonged to the dwelling of Tanner, who himself set fire to his house the
other day, before murdering Mr. Schoolcraft, and in a few minutes were at
the wharf of this remotest settlement of the northwest.
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