Volume 1

LAKE WINNIPEG—GRAND MARAIS. 39
we loaded and embarked, with an aft wind, from the N.
Our course from Red Deer island was about S. After dark
the wind increased. We could find no convenient place to
land— nothing but large rocks, over which the sea broke
dangerously. Necessity kept us on with our sails closereefed,
until we reached the Point of the Grand Marais.
Here the sea ran so high that we shipped a quantity of
water, which kept us using kettles to bail it
came in.
out as fast as it
At last we sighted the Grand Marais, and finding
ourselves more under a lee, we ran in safely about ten
o'clock.*'^
reached us.
It was some' time before all the canoes and boats
Sunday, Aug. lyth.
Early this morning I was anxious to
proceed. The wind had fallen, but as the swell was still
very high, the guide thought it imprudent to attempt the
traverse of about six leagues to the entrance of Red river.
Our disaster of yesterday being no encouragement to defy
the elements, we dried our things and I went duck shooting,
having seen great numbers in the marais during my walk.
I shot several, and observed the tracks of moose, red deer,
and bears. The beach was covered with grasshoppers,"
which had been thrown up by the waves and formed one
continuous line as far as the eye could reach ; in some
places they lay from six to nine inches deep, and in a state
of putrefaction, which occasioned a horrid stench. I also
shot a pelican \Pelecanus erythrorhynchus\ of which there
are great plenty here. During my absence a party of my
people had been out to raise cedar for repairing their canoes
^'
Henry put in on the W. shore of the peninsula which delimits Traverse
bay, about halfway from the land's end of that peninsula to the mouth of Red c
The Grand Marais or Big Marsh used to be called 6 leagues from Red r.,
but is not quite so far. A bay in this vicinity was known as Indian Portage
bay, because they used to carry 5 or 6 m. N. E. across the peninsula into
Traverse bay, instead of rounding the point. Henry habitually uses the F.
marais, not only in proper names, but as an English word, instead of marsh,
morass, swamp, or bog ; the copy commonly spells marrais, which I correct.
*^
Rocky Mountain locust, Calopienus spretus: compare date of June 25th,
1808, beyond.