Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-07-25
AN ENTERTAINING THEME

am pine land man. Some OF your
readers may have learned that fact from
recent sensational proceedings and news
paper reports. am aware that among
the rural simpiicities of some of the north
west and certain class of hyper-moralists
pine land man is considered a
little worse than highway
robber and only trife better than the
culprit guilty of arson, larceny and rape.
Nevertheless am pine land man, and
being somewhat posted on pine lands and
pine land men, and methods in Minnesota,
after prayerful consideration of the SUBJ
iect in which have wrestled with tempta-
tions like Swedenborg in his dreams of
amorous women have overcome the re-
luctant spirit and resolved to enlighten
yonr readers on the practical subject of
PINE LANDS.
Take a recent map of Minnesota. Put
your pencil at point on the st. Croix
river due east from Harris
Station on the st. Paul & Duluth railroad;
thence draw direct line enthusiastically
to Belle Prairie, on the Mississippi, and
onward to Detroit, Becker county, on the
Northern Pacific; thence strike due north
line to the national boundary. All that
part of Minnesota lying north and east of
your pencil line, including the section
north of Lake Superior, is the pine region
of Minnesota. 1t embraces more than
one-third, almost one-half, of the area of
the state. This region, however, is not
one continuous pine forest. Indeed it is
only dotted here and there with ''clumps"
and groves of merchantable pine. The
''jack" and scrub pines that largely prevail
are of little or no value. And inter-
spersed throughout this entire section
are numerous tracts of hardwood, burnt,
brush and prairie lands and innumerable
lakes, lagoons, marshes and morasses. This
region is indeed a great sponge which re-
ceives and holds the rains of heaven.
From it ooze the waters of the Gitchee-
Gumee-Sebee Cthe st. Louis river), flowing
into the Gitchee-Gumee of the Chippewas,
Lake Superior, and thence through the
Sault Ste Marie and over Niagara to the
Atlantic ocean, and also the waters of the
Mississippi "a corruption of the Chippewa
mama, Gitchee-Big Seebee-River), that
drive the droning mills of Minneapolis and
bear the amber dust of the plumed pines
to the briny waters of the tropic gulf.
Here, too, are the sources of the Red
River of the North and the Rainy river,
winding northward through Lake Winnipeg
and Nelson's river to the icy waters of
Hudson's bay. This region is the
home of our cousins, the moose, the
red deer, the bear, the wolf, the lynx,
the fox, the otter, the marten, the mink,
the muskrat, the muskallonge, the white
fish, the water-turtle and the Oi1bway In
dian. That odorous animal with white
stripes and bushy tail, sometimes called
the "city editor" also inhabits this region.
Strange as it may seem this wilderness of
woods and waters is not only geologically,
but historically the Oldest section of Min
nesota. Duluth and his hardy couriers DIV
6OiS explored this region more than two
hundred years ago and established trade
with the Ojibways and the Dakotas.
learn from an able historical sketch re-
Gently published in France by Victor
Hugo that the first pine logs ever taken
down the Mississippi to the Falls of st.
Anthony were cut and RATED by the cele-
brated Daniel Greysolon Du Luth at the
spotwhere now stands the city of Brainerd.
On this raft Du Luth and the two moon
faced Dakota maidens iwho mended
his moccasins and kindled
his campfire hoated leisurly
in the olden, golden, dim and dreamy DAYS
of 1879 down the Gitchee Sebee-the Big
river-to the "Ha-Ha" of the Dakotas-
now the Falls of st. Anthony $50 named by
Father Hennepin because when he visited
the falls he was suffering with 'injin itch"
which he mistook for est. Anthony's
dance'')
These historic logs upon which, old set
tiers say, was born the great-great-grand-
father of Detective Marshall, the famous
"BaIdHeaded Charger Of the PrairieS," are
the only logs or timber of any kind ar
irving at these famous falls that ever es-
capped paying toll or tribute to that ancient
and charitable corporation, "The Mississippi
pi and Rum River Boom company" Father
Hennepin, the companion and defamer of
La Sale, after whom was named the once
magnificent county of Hennepin (now,
alas, absorbed by the extended limits of
the booming" city of Minneapolis), and
also the Indian gambling game of ''plum
stones" devil dice" or "Chennepin,"
which the holy father is said to
have introduced among the savages,
spent the winter of 168O-81 at Mile Laos
lake-the M'de Waken-(spirit lake, of
the Dakotas, as the guest of Chief Aqui-
paguetin and his band. 1t was said that
Father Hennepin won his way right royalty
that winter by playing "chennepin'' with
the guileless sons of the forest. Beads,
blankets, bear and beaver skins, wampum
and women, were recklessly staked on the
hazard of the game by the bronzed war
riors of the wilderness; and although Faith
er Hennepin himself is too modest to
mention it in his description de la Louis
iG1,e," it was broadly limited by La Sale
and generally credited at the French court,
that the holy father won with his game of
"chennepin" so many moon-faced maids
of the band that it required ten teepees to
house his harem. John Culinary Shea, the
able translator and annotator of Henne-
pin, intimates that this was probably the
real cause of the GOODNESS between
Du Luth and the holy father. It
is said that the descendants of Hen
nepin's numerous ''boiS brules"