1848 — Wisconsin Territory survey crew arrives at Lake Vermilion

J. G. Norwood, working in the employ of U. S. geologist David Dale Owen, spent the summer and autumn of 1848 surveying the northwestern most reaches of the Wisconsin Territory, including Lake Vermilion and the Vermilion River.

The Minnesota Arrowhead, lands east and north of the Mississippi River and west of the St. Croix, north to the Canadian border, remained a part of Wisconsin Territory following the 1838 split of Iowa and the Dakotas to form the new Iowa Territory. In 1848, as Wisconsin was preparing for statehood, the United States commissioned a survey of the northern most outreaches of the territory.

Norwood’s survey crew followed the old Indian and voyageur fur trade route out of Fond du Lac and he reports a detailed accounting of his journey to Lake Vermilion country:

I started to La Pointe, on the 31st of July. At that place, I obtained provisions sufficient to last the corps for three months, and then returned to Fond du Lac Village, where I was rejoined by Colonel Whittlesey; and on the 12th of August, we began to ascend St. Louis River. This stream was followed up to the mouth of Upper Embarras River, where we left it, and ascended the last-named stream to a point where the Indian trail, which crosses the highlands separating the waters of Hudson’s Bay from those of Lake Superior, strikes it. By this trail, which is six miles in length, we reached the head-waters of Vermilion River, (1.) and descended that stream, through Vermilion Lake to Rainy Lake. thence we descended Rainy Lake River as far as the mouth of Big Fork River, the largest tributary of that stream. …

Upper Embarras River. — We entered this river on the 21st of August, and on the 23d reached Ishquagoma, or “End Lake,”… [Read More]