Early Transportation on the Upper Mississippi

                        By CHARLES JAGOW


IN the writings of the early ex-
  plorers one finds the majestic
river which flows through the cen-
tral  valley  of  North   America
spoken of by various names. After
having been called "River of the
Holy Ghost" by Cortez; "Chuca-
gua,"   "Tanakusuey,"    "Tapatu,"
"Mico," "Chucaquax," "Canaveral,"
"Rio de Flores," "Palisado," "Es-
condida," and "Baude" by others;
and also "St. Louis river" by de-
cree of the king of France in 1712.
this mighty river has so fittingly
resumed its original Indian name.
The Algonquin Indians called the
stream  "Mech-e-se-be," while the
Chippewa Indians called it "Mesee-
seepe," both of which names mean
"Great Waters" or "Father of Wa-
ters." Mississippi in the Ojibbeway
tongue signifies "great river" or
"river of water from   all sides."
When we remember the immense
extent of the valley watered by this
river, and its hundred tributaries,
these names must be considered as
singularly expressive.
  The first craft to sail on the Mis-
sissippi river were the Indian ca-
noes, which were of two types-the
log canoe, which came to be known
as a piroque and.more commonly in
Wisconsin as a "dugout," and the
birch-bark canoe. The piroque was
made by hollowing out a sound log
from fifteen to thirty feet long and
about three feet in diameter by
means of fire and rough cutting in-
struments of stone with the result,
that a very strong and serviceable,
though rough and slow moving craft
was obtained. The French      soon
learned to use piroques to transport
furs and peltries down river, but
they found them to be almost un-
believably unsteady as they would
turn bottom-side up with the slight-
est movement. One reads of a pir-
oque, loaded high with skins, turn-
ing over as ofter as four times in
one day. Later the French learned
not only to use them so skillfully
that they could brave even the dan-


gerous eddies and currents of the
Mississippi, but also to improve up-
on the construction of piroques. The
French would sometimes saw a pir-
oque lengthwise into two equal sec-
tions, or use  the  trunks of two
trees, and insert a broad flat piece
of timber in the middle so as to
give  greater breadth to the boat.
These enlarged piroques could be
safely used as ferry-boats and were
capable of carrying from one to five
tons.
  A much more mobile and useful
canoe built by the Indians was the
birch-bark canoe. Its framework
was made of thin strips of cedar or
spruce to which was attached the
birch bark covering by means of
long, tough fibrous roots of the larch
or balsam, which   had  previously
been manipulated into extreme pli-
ability. The boat was then made
water-tight by covering its seams
and cracks with hot pitch from the
balsam or spruce. The importance
of these canoes to the Indians is at
once evident when we recall that
the Indians were very generally dif-
ferentiated from   one another as
"canoe Indians" and those who trav-
elled on foot.
  When the French agents for some
fur company came into the wilder-
ness from the north and east to
barter with the Indians for furs,
they adopted the Indian birch-bark
canoe for they realized the advan-
tages of such a light craft whose
buoyancy enabled it to ride safely
over the waves and whose slender
form and lightness permitted it to
navigate the smallest streams and
narrowest channels and to be car-
ried on the shoulders of a man. The
Franch traders, however, improved
the birch-bark canoe of the Indians
a great deal. A typical canoe, as
built by them, was thirty feet long,
four feet wide at its widest point,
two and one-half feet deep in the
center, and about two feet deep near
the bow and stern. Its bottom was
rounded and had no keel. The canoe