Historical Quotes from the 1836 Journal of French scientist and cartographer Joseph Nicolas Nicollet

(August 11, 1836)

“We pitched camp on a point of land separating a bay from the lake, leaving a channel between it and the opposite hills.”  French scientist and cartographer Joseph Nicolas Nicollet and his Native American guided entourage had paddled 25 miles in just under 12 hours that day.

Sitting inside the quiet, reverent Weyerhaeuser room of the Minnesota Historical Society Library in St. Paul after reading the above quote, I felt suspended between eras of time spanning 176 years.  Much had changed during those nearly two centuries, but the essential course of the Gull River and its convergence with Gull Lake remain a beautiful place for exploration, camping and recreation.

I had been reading from the pages of * The Journals of Joseph N. Nicollet, A Scientist on the Mississippi Headwaters with Notes on Indian Life, 1836-37, copyright 1970 by the Minnesota Historical Society.  Nicollet’s French writings had been translated by Andre’ Fertey and edited by Martha Coleman Brey. This is part of Fertey’s preface in the book: “[Nicollet]wrote the journals … in an unsteady canoe launched upon unpredictable waters, or assailed by mosquitoes in the cramped space of a tent by the dim glow of hesitant candlelight … “.

The eloquent entries describing sights and sounds of Indian burial mounds, northern lights, fireflies and thunderstorms could echo countless other journal writings made by visitors and residents to this area long before and after Nicollet was recognized as the first Gull River to Lake explorer.

Could he have also sensed a future gathering such as was hosted August 4, 2012, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to celebrate the centennial of the Gull Lake Dam at the Gull Lake Recreation Area?  Could the modern tent which provided shade for visitors attending that historic event perhaps have covered the same ground where Nicolette wrote and slept on Government Point?

Nicollet’s party had spent several days navigating upstream the Mississippi and Crow Rivers prior to venturing up the mouth of the Gull River at 5:42 am that historic morning.  His journal states, “There was a fog on the river, it was cool … River sixty to eighty feet wide, 3 feet deep.”

Following are more of Nicollet’s writings from that day:

“The river penetrates upstream into an open flat country of most cheerful appearance.  The [difficult] section we have just traveled since we left the Crow River … was created, as it were, to prepare our eyes for the agreeable surprise we experienced when we reached the plain.  Here the river is no more than thirty to forty feet wide, but it is deeper, more serene, easier and safer to navigate.  It meanders every five or ten minutes across open prairies hemmed by woods.  The water is extremely transparent.  Its characteristics of freshness and excellence of taste are a valuable compensation for the hardness and warmth of the Mississippi water which has grown tiresome after several days of use. … At 11:30 we rested.  We had traveled five miles just since breakfast.  Our fishing and hunting parties had been fruitful and entertaining. “

There was mention of a “vast horizon of reeds” and an Indian who hoisted his son upon his shoulders so the child could indicate with his finger which direction to go, making many zig zags in the process.  The party’s guide, “Chagobay,” said it would take all day to meander so a more straight line was coursed across the reeds for about 3 miles.

The journal continues, “… I was surprised to see … a hillock that definitely had the appearance of having been made by the hands of man, very much like those Indian mounds that are so common in the United States.  But the great prize of this short visit paid to the mysterious and ancient relic was the view I was able to enjoy from its summit, which is no higher than fifteen feet above the river.  … one long and large valley, spacious and airy – a vast blanket of verdure sliced by silver waves and framed by two long black lines of pines fading away on the horizon northward and southward.  The valley from north to south is nearly six miles long. It was 2:30 when we left this sea of greenery and resumed the course of the river that had become more uniform and regulated.”

Chagobay reportedly speared fish without missing, even when the canoe was moving.  Around 3:00 pm they encountered rapids and two miles above the rapids, the river deepened.

“We reached Gull Lake at 4:15.”  And there, they pitched his tent. He went on to write, “The average elevation of … summits around the parameter of this beautiful sheet of water is forty-five feet.”

The book reports that maps drawn during that expedition of the upper Mississippi, (the group continued to the source of the great river,) were very accurate and stayed such until times of modern surveys. Around Itasca, a band of Native Americans from Leech Lake became threatening but the situation diffused and the book goes on to say Nicollet became the “…first scientific observer to systematically study Chippewa customs.”

(This article contains information compiled by EGL History Editor Linda Olsen Engel)