Volume 1

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20 RAINY LAKE HOUSE AND RIVER.
or establishment of Lac la Pluie, where we found Mr. Grant,
one of the proprietors of the N. W. Co." Here we stopped
for the day. There is a good garden, well stocked with
vegetables of various kinds — potatoes,
in particular, which
are now eatable. This evening my brigade arrived all safe.
The gentlemen danced until daybreak, all very merry.
Sunday, Aug. 3d. Set all hands to work repairing their
canoes. At twelve o'clock they were ready, and immediately
embarked. We have great plenty of sturgeon {Acipenser
rubicundus] at present. Having dined, I embarked at
four o'clock ;
passed the Grande Fourche [Big Fork river],
where a few Red [Lake?] Indians were camped; saw also
some Indians at Riviere Noir [Black river]. We camped
" In finishing the traverse of Rainy 1., Henry doubtless took a course nearly
or quite the same as the present international boundary, which runs W. in a
pretty straight direction between various isls., two of the largest of which are
now called Sand Point isl. and Dry Weed isl., and two others are Red Pine and
Jackfish. In so doing also, he ceases to have St. Louis Co., Minn., on his left,
and enters upon Itasca Co., just before passing opposite a place called Rainy
Lake City, on the E. side of the entrance to Black bay. He leaves the lake and
enters Rainy r. proper at Pither's point. This river begins with rapids at the
discharge of the lake for about 400 yards, S. to W. Henry does not notice
these rapids, but the place is historically notable, for at their foot stood Fort St.
Pierre, a picketed French post built by Verendrye in 1731 in a meadow, amid
groves of oak. This is said to have been destroyed before 1763 ;
it is not
noticed by the elder Henry, 1775. From the rapids the course is S. 60° W. %
m., S. 72° W. %'m., and N. 40° W. yi m. to the Chaudiere portage of the
text. This carriage was on the right for 150 yards, occasioned by the falls
among the many called Chaudiere or Kettle, and sometimes formerly Chute de
la Chaudiere—where there is a descent of water of 20 ft. in three ridges. Here
is the site of present Alberton, Ont., and of the H. B. Co. post called Fort
Frances, after Sir Geo. Simpson's wife, though found on some maps as Fort
Francis and Fort St. Francis. The N. W. Co. establishment, Rainy Lake
House, to which Henry proceeds, was but little further down, on the high bank
on the N. side. Thompson calls it half a mile from the falls to the N. W. Co,
house to which he proceeded in 1797. The oldest post in this vicinity (exact
site undetermined) is said to have been the one called Tekamamicuen or
Takamanigan, established by La Noue in 1717. In 1823 the H. B. Co. post
was in charge of Mr. Simon McGillivray ; and the A. F. Co. had a house on
the other side of the river, in charge of Mr. Davenport. Long's party here
found John Tanner, whose extraordinary narrative was pub. in 1830 in the
language of Dr. Edwin James, 8vo, N. Y.