Happy Birthday, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Illman & Sons, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1884

The BIRCHEN CANOE

In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep

My beautiful fabric was built;

Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,

And its sides with the sunbeams are gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,

A flexible sheathing provides;

And the fir’s thready roots drew the parts to agree,

And bound down its high swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used in the bark,

No art but the simplest degree;

But the structure was finished and trim to remark,

And as light as a sylph’s could be.

Its rim was with tender young roots woven round,

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;

And it pressed on the waves was as lightsome a bound,

As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in their brightness and glory below,

Were reflected quite plain to the view;

And it moved like a swan – with as graceful a show,

My beautiful birchen canoe.

The tree on the shore as I glided along.

Seemed rushing a contrary way;

And my voyagers lightened their toll with a song,

That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell

My bark raised a murmur aloud;

And it danced on the waves as they rose and they fell,

Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought as I pass’d o’er the liquid expanse,

With the landscape in smiling array;

How blest I should be, if my life should advance,

Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene, not a cloud was in sight,

Not an angry surge beat the shore,

And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,

Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh! long shall I think of those silver bright lakes,

And the scenes they expose to my view;

My friends – and the wishes I formed for their sakes

And my bright yellow birchen canoe.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, born on this day in 1793

Happy Birthday, Schoolcraft

Illman & Sons, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1884

The BIRCHEN CANOE

In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep

My beautiful fabric was built;

Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,

And its sides with the sunbeams are gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,

A flexible sheathing provides;

And the fir’s thready roots drew the parts to agree,

And bound down its high swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used in the bark,

No art but the simplest degree;

But the structure was finished and trim to remark,

And as light as a sylph’s could be.

Its rim was with tender young roots woven round,

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;

And it pressed on the waves was as lightsome a bound,

As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in their brightness and glory below,

Were reflected quite plain to the view;

And it moved like a swan – with as graceful a show,

My beautiful birchen canoe.

The tree on the shore as I glided along.

Seemed rushing a contrary way;

And my voyagers lightened their toll with a song,

That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell

My bark raised a murmur aloud;

And it danced on the waves as they rose and they fell,

Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought as I pass’d o’er the liquid expanse,

With the landscape in smiling array;

How blest I should be, if my life should advance,

Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene, not a cloud was in sight,

Not an angry surge beat the shore,

And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,

Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh! long shall I think of those silver bright lakes,

And the scenes they expose to my view;

My friends – and the wishes I formed for their sakes

And my bright yellow birchen canoe.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, born on this day in 1793

Happy Birthday, Schoolcraft

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born on this day in 1793.

From Schoolcraft's Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States: extending from Detroit through the great chain of American lakes to the sources of the Mississippi River, performed as a member of the expedition under Governor Cass, in the year 1820, Library of Congress ...

We observed a number of smoked squirrels, fish, and ducks, hanging in the upper part of the tent; indicating a degree of care, for the subsistence of their children, and forecast as to the uncertainties of the chase, which is highly honorable to the judgment and the paternal feelings of these people.

They have a method of taking fish through the ice in the winter season, which is equally novel and ingenious. After a hole has been cut through the ice, they encompass it with a slender circular frame of rods, or a kind of open basket, over which a blanket, is thrown to exclude the light. The savage now lays himself down upon the ice, with his head under this hood, and playing a decoy or artificial fish upon the surface of the water within the hand, holds a drawn spear in the other, and when the large trout suddenly dart up to seize their fancied prey, pierces the body of his victim with unerring certainty. The spear is short and loosens itself from the handle the moment it is struck, but is attached to a strong line, with which he plays the fish a while in the water below, and draws it out as soon as it becomes sufficiently enfeebled with the wound. This method of fishing was first noticed by Mr. Hudson, a missionary among the Saganaws, to whose manuscript journal I am permitted to refer for the facts.

CONNECT 

Imbued.

Reed, Ojibwe Woman on the Shore, Ponemah, Minnesota, 1908

Her mind in childhood had been thoroughly imbued with the lodge-lore, imaginary legends, and the traditions of the forest which cover the whole aerial sphere of the heavens, and render the doctrines, the existence of gods and spirits familiar to the youthful ear and eye.  They were to her familiar as household work.  She could look into the bright tracery of the stars and clouds, and read them in the sublime pictography of the wise men and sages of her forest ancestry.

Jane Schoolcraft on her mother's storytelling, from The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Happy Birthday, Schoolcraft

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born on this date in 1793.

An excellent book ...

State.

Schoolcraft, A Map of the Acting Superintendency of Michigan, 1837

Michigan became the 26th state on this date in 1837.

Danced.

Johnson, Ojibwa Birch Canoe, 1857

The BIRCHEN CANOE

In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep

My beautiful fabric was built;

Light cedars supported its weight on the deep,

And its sides with the sunbeams are gilt.

The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,

A flexible sheathing provides;

And the fir’s thready roots drew the parts to agree,

And bound down its high swelling sides.

No compass or gavel was used in the bark,

No art but the simplest degree;

But the structure was finished and trim to remark,

And as light as a sylph’s could be.

Its rim was with tender young roots woven round,

Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;

And it pressed on the waves was as lightsome a bound,

As a basket suspended in air.

The heavens in their brightness and glory below,

Were reflected quite plain to the view;

And it moved like a swan – with as graceful a show,

My beautiful birchen canoe.

The tree on the shore as I glided along.

Seemed rushing a contrary way;

And my voyagers lightened their toll with a song,

That caused every heart to be gay.

And still as I floated by rock and by shell

My bark raised a murmur aloud;

And it danced on the waves as they rose and they fell,

Like a fay on a bright summer cloud.

I thought as I pass’d o’er the liquid expanse,

With the landscape in smiling array;

How blest I should be, if my life should advance,

Thus tranquil and sweetly away.

The skies were serene, not a cloud was in sight,

Not an angry surge beat the shore,

And I gazed on the waters and then on the light,

Till my vision could bear it no more.

Oh! long shall I think of those silver bright lakes,

And the scenes they expose to my view;

My friends – and the wishes I formed for their sakes

And my bright yellow birchen canoe.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Here.

Varley, Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay, 1921

LINES, ON COMING to RESIDE at SAULT STE. MARIE

Remote from all the world – away – away.

Where lone St. Mary’s waters foam and play

And broad Superior’s mountains, riding high

In pictured forms, imprint the northern sky;

Far, far from every haunt the heart holds dear,

What can engage the contemplative, here.

Long mazes past, where lakes and streams resound

I seem to stand at earth’s remotest bound.

I turn me round to ask if such scenes bless,

Such wilds, such wastes; and Truth replies yes! yes!

Man on himself can turn, and he shall find,

Food for the noblest gifts of heart and mind.

If cities, towns, and men be absent

Its very loneliness and woods are dear.

The wild magnificence that marks the zone,

Gives to the mind new vigor, power and tone

Above, the clouds, with light, and fleecy bound,

Deck the bright arch, & scatter gems around,

Below, the winding waters devious play,

Superior’s self proud trembling on its way

It crystal torrents, that with fretful roar,

With murmur’s speed along St, Mary’s shore;

By day I hear these falls their tale recite,

And on my ear, they murmur all the night,

It is the diapason deep whose organ forms,

Are lightnings, thunders, winds, tornadoes, storms.

Above, around expressive vastness reigns,

And nature stalks a giant o’er the plains;

Gems glitter from the heavens, a starry road,

Where spreads the typic footprints of a God.

To view this sight, the painted Indian stands,

And tells how giants big, once filled the lands.

And oft of heroes speaks, once killed in wars,

By necromancers were transformed to stars.

Or demi-gods, who hold divided bound,

With Monedo himself, & deals thunders round.

A poor philosopher is he, on Newton’s plan,

He reasons just of what he knows of man

And nature; and e’er kindly takes

God on his side, and deems that He partakes

In all his wigwam lore & care & fondly deems

His grim old priest oft speaks his will in dreams.

Talk to this man. – a Turk or Chinese,

Are not more erudite in Heaven’s decrees.

Or how the world began, and why & when

Kind Heaven made beasts, & birds, the world and men.

Turn we from nature is her forest child,

What see we, but the human form run wild

A man of dreams and fancies, -- to his hopes,

Thoughts, signs, beliefs, a world wide vistas opes.

Why burns the grave light, on you burial height,

At midnight, -- it is to give his wandering spirit light.

Why dance, the auroral vapors in the skies,

They are the ghosts of his own paradise,

Who joy in realms of compensating bliss

For miseries endured, through life, in this.

On civil toils he looks as something sore

Which white-men have brought over to the shore,

And letters, and all that, -- but for himself his fears,

Are but for want of heaven, elks and bears;

Ah, wanderer of the woods! – if far thy steps have trod

Far from all social light & letters, truth and God,

In the lone region where thou now dost stray,

With ocean-lakes to mark the ample way.

Yet is there hope for thee, in noble cares,

That point, with heavenly faith, above the stars.

There is a sympathy that ever burns,

For the lone step that from its error turns.

Heaven is not, in its fists to be blamed,

Nor made the Indian simply to be damned.

If far thou art, O savage of the plain

Where arts and light & truth & letters reign,

Yet in that very want, a cause may seem,

That makest thou thyself, an ample theme,

Despite the lonesomeness of place and line,

And much I err, or else thou shall be mine.

Ekiega, from Issue No. 1 (December 1826) of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's The Literary Voyager

All.

Harris, Sketch near Lake Superior, nd

LINES to a FRIEND ASLEEP

Awake my friend! the morning's fine,
Waste not in sleep the day divine,
Nature is clad in the best array,
The woods, the fields, the flowers are gay; --
The sun is up, and speech his march,
O'er heaven's high aerial arch,
His golden beams with lustre fall,
On lake a river, cot and hall; --
The dews are sparkling on each spray,
The birds are chirping sweet and gay,
The violet shows its beautious head,
Within its narrow, figured bed; --
The air is pure, the earth bedight,
With trees and flowers, life and light,
All -- all inspires a joyful gleam,
More pleasing than a fairy dream.
Awake! the sweet refreshing scene,
Invites us forth to tread the green,
With joyful hearts, and pious lays,
To join the glorious Maker's praise,
The wond'rous works -- the paschal lamb,
The holy, high, and just I Am.

Rosa (Jane Johnston Schoolcraft)

Happy birthday, Schoolcraft.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born on this day in 1793.

CONNECT