The things we do!

It is on this journey
that the world makes first acquaintance of that mendacious historian Friar
Hennepin, who, equipped with a portable altar, ministered to his
companions and the savages along the way and wrote the chronicles of the
expedition. It is he who has left us the first picture of Niagara Falls
unprofaned by tourists; of the buffalo, now extinct except for a few
scrawny specimens in parks, and of St. Anthony Falls. After loss by wreck
of a part of the material intended for the vessel and repeated delays, due
to La Salle's creditors at Frontenac and the Indians on his way, the
vessel was at last completed, launched with proper ceremonies, and started
on her maiden trip up those lakes where sail was never seen before.
It is this ship that found temporary haven in the cove back of Point St.
Ignace in 1679 while La Salle, "very finely dressed in his scarlet cloak
trimmed with gold lace," knelt, his companions about him, and again heard
mass where the bones of Marquette were doubtless even then gathered before
the Jesuit altar.


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