Original - North Central Michigan College Library

severe gale, from the dangers of which weescaped by making the island called the Buffalo'sHead; but not without the loss of acanoe and four men. The shores from theentrance of this lake to the island with exceptionof the points are rocky and lofty; thepoints are rocky, but low. The wood is pineand fir. We took pouts, cat-fish, or catheads, ofsix pounds weight.On the twenty-first we crossed to the southshore and reached Oak Point, so called from afew scrub oaks which here begin to diversifythe forest of pine and fir. The pelicans, whichwe everywhere saw, appeared to be impatientof the long stay we made in fishing. Leavingthe island, we found the lands along the shorewent into the Lake Winnipeg region for the first time,where he encountered Henry. Three years later all thetraders of this district, including Pond, met at SturgeonLake and agreed to pool their interests. This was thebeginning of the famous North West Company. Pondwas a man of pugnacious disposition. In the Detroitperiod of his trading career he fought a duel in whichhis opponent fell, and which caused Pond to leave thecountry. In 1782 he shot and killed a trader namedWadin, with whom he had had a quarrel. Wadin'swidow applied for a trial and Pond was sent to Quebecto stand trial, but was acquitted for lack of jurisdiction.Returning to the Northwest, he killed John Ross, a wellknowntrader, in a duel fought at Great Slave Lake in1787. The next year he sold his interest in the NorthWest Company and retired to the United States, dyingat his native Milford in 1807. Pond's journal of hisearlier years in the army and the fur trade is printed inWis. Hist. Colls., XVIII, 314-54. Editor.244