These Assiniboines did not go to the bay by way of
Lake Superior, but by way of Lake Winnipeg. (2) A memoire written by
De la Chesnaye in 1696--see _Documents Nouvelle France_,
1492-1712--distinctly refers to a _coureur's_ trail from Lake Superior
to Lake Assiniboine or Lake Winnipeg. There is no record of any
Frenchmen but Radisson and Groseillers having followed such a trail to
the land of the Assiniboines--the Manitoba of to-day--before 1676.
[5] One can guess that a man who wrote in that spirit two centuries
before the French Revolution would not be a sycophant in
courts,--which, perhaps, helps to explain the conspiracy of silence
that obscured Radisson's fame.
[6] My reason for thinking that this region was farther north than
Minnesota is the size of the Cree winter camp; but I have refrained
from trying to localize this part of the trip, except to say it was
west and north of Duluth. Some writers recognize in the description
parts of Minnesota, others the hinterland between Lake Superior and
James Bay. In the light of the _memoire_ of 1696 sent to the French
government, I am unable to regard this itinerary as any other than the
famous fur traders' trail between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg by
way of Sturgeon River and the Lake of the Woods.
[7] _Radisson Relations_, p. 207.
[8] We are now on safe ground. There was a well-known trail from what
is now known as the Rat Portage region to the great Sioux camps west of
the Mississippi and Red River valleys.
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