Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1915-02-03
MINNESOTA'S
STORY
By E. NJ. Lehnerts.
General Extension Division, The Uni
versity of Minnesota.
II. Early Trails

versity of Minnesota.
II. Early Trails
Long before the white mans era
dawned in the region now called Min
nesota, even long before the Red Man
had tracked the forests and prairies
into network of trails and piled his
busy paddle on almost countless lakes
and streams, the Mound Builder was
constructing his curiously interesting
earthworks and was making his path
ways to and from his home and hunt
ing grounds.
The mounds of Minnesota contain
considerable quantities Of pipestone
implements, shell ornaments, and
copper implements and ornaments.
For the pipestone it was necessary
to journey to the southwest corner of
the state. Some of the shells found
in the McKinstry mounds, Itasca
county, belong to the genera Natica
and Marginella, and must have been
brought from the Gulf of Mexico or
the coast of California. But the most
interesting suggestion concerning the
transportation of materials buried in
the mounds of Minnesota is found in
the copper utensils and ornaments.
Stray pieces of copper found in the
glacial drift doubtless furnished the
Mound Builders with some of their
material, but there is evidence that
these people early learned to extract
the metal from the Lake Superior
copper deposits. Therefore, journeys
had to be made over trail and water
way to northern Michigan. It is more
than probable that these aborigines,
in their migrations and in their quest
for food, fur, pipestone, copper, and
other desired materials, became the
original trail-makers in Minnesota,
and these prehistoric people in a
measure prepared the paths for the
historic Red Men.
Buffalo Made Trails
Nor were the Red Men alone in
their time in the making of trails
and pathways. They were given no
little assistance during the warmer
months of the year by the heavy
hoofed American buffaloes. These
animals, in migrating from one re-
gion to another, and in going from
their ranges to their wallowing
grounds, passed in single file and
made deep traces or paths which the
Indians often used as trails, especial
ly when their objective point lay in
the same direction as the buffalo's
wallowing or feeding ground.
Both the Indian and the buffalo
trails generally followed the high
ground because it usually provided
the most level and direct course, was
better drained, safer from fire, less
blocked by winter SHOWS, and the ele-
vations, for the Indian, were vantage
points for lookout and signaling. If
trails turned into low ground and
crossed streams, it was owing to the
fact that the valleys could not be
avoided in reaching the desired des-
tinations.
The requirements of the typical
Indian trail are well illustrated in
the old Lake Agassiz or Pembina
trail, or as it was called in the days
of the Red River carts, the st. Paul
trail. It was known as the Lake
Agassiz trail because it followed a
beach ridge along the east shore OF
Lake Agassiz which during part OF
the glacial period, covered most OF
the Red River basin. When this lake
ceased to exist, its level and fertile
bed furnished excellent grazing
grounds for the buffalo, and its
slightly elevated beach ridges, made
by the waves and currents along its
ancient shores, offered ideal grounc
for the trails Of both the buffalo ane
the Indian. After serving the Rec
Men for many years as a famou.
hunting highway, the Pembina O
4 Lake Agassiz trail, in 1914, becam.
and for twenty years remained not
ed thoroughfare for the Red Rive,
cart brigades which wendell thei
way to st. Paul.
7. When the first French voyagers
/ Groseilliers and Radisson, came t,
this region in 1866, the Dakota O
Sioux were masters Of the entir,
territory. The Ojibwas or Chippe
4 was had not yet pushed their way in
to Minnesota from northern Wiscon
SIM But in 1879 the Ojibwas wer,
{ here, for at that time Duluth mad.
energetic efforts to establish peac,
between them and the Dakotas will
whom they were fighting for the pos