LAKE SUPERIOR COUNTRY
BY JOHN H. Forester.
The paper which I had the honor to submit on the Lake Superior country, at the last meeting of this society, brought us down to the winter of 1847. For the decade following I was employed on the west coast of America, so that you must look to others to fill the gap in the history of that country. In the memorable year 1857,memorable for one of the worst panics that ever swept over the country, I returned to the copper mines, or rather to the Upper Peninsula. During that decade much progress had been made all along the south shore of Lake Superior. At the Sault Ste. Marie a tram-road had supplanted the old Indian trail and wagon road, only to make way in the year 1855 for the ship canal. But the completion of the canal seemed to be fatal to the growth and prosperity of the place. The golden harvest reaped from the trans-shipment of merchandise and minerals across the Portage, as well as that derived from the money expended in canal construction, ceased to enrich the inhabitants and furnish them employment. The natural resources of the town were exceedingly limited. The old industries of fishing and trapping had been neglected, and one of them, the fur trade, was destined never to revive. Consequently a large majority of the inhabit ants emigrated, many of them in time becoming leading pioneers in the iron and copper fields further west.
