Page 236 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

232 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

at or near Green Bay, while they evidently all belonged to
the Algic race, except the Winnebgoes.
The ancestors of the present Chippewas of Lake Superior,
traveled in canoes along the rivcis and Lakes. Their frail
boats were, and @till are made of white cedar, ribs and framee,
very light, and covered with the bark of the white birch, often
not over the sixteenth of an inch, but generally one-eighth of
an inch in thickness, the whole so light that a man or woman
can carry them on their backs, or by a strap across their fore-
heads, over the portages, which go round falls, or from one
atream to another. This was, and still is, their mode of sum-
mer conveyance. But in wintcr they move on snow shoes and
dog trains. I have ncver seen a horse among the Chippewas,
while they abound among the Sioux and Winnebagoes.
But when did this part of the Algic family make a firm and
continued stand in what is now Wisconsin? This could not
have been much if any before 1726, when, according to the
Cass papers, (Vol. 3. Wisconsin Historical Collections) the
French established Forts at both Green Bay and La Pointe.
In 1843, mhen I was Indian agent at La Pointe in the first .
council I held with the Indians at that place, BUFFALO, the
old chief, said that the first council fire of the Chippewas, on
the south shore of Lake Superior, was kindled on that Island,
(Magdalene,)and had been kept burning ever since: meaning,
that La Pointe was the head a_uarters, as it was the beginning
of their settlement on this side of the Lake.
From them I learned that the first of their settlement on
that Island was about one hundred and twenty years previ-
ous, which would make it correspond with the time of the
establishment of the French Fort and Trading Post at that
place, as given in the "Cass documents," that is, 1726.
The reason given for selecting the Island infitead of the
main land at Che-goi-me-gon, the site of the mission in thaO
region, was, that the Sioux at that time claimed the coun-
try to the Lake shore, including the Islands, and in the
wars that grew out of these encroachments upon the soil, the