Original - North Central Michigan College Library

antilow and wooded with birch and marsh mapleintermixed with spruce-fir. The beach isgravelly, and the points rocky.To the westward of Pike River, which wepassed on the first of September,is a rock ofgreat length, called the Roche Rouge, andentirely composed of a pitrre & calumet, orstone used by the Indians for making tobaccopipebowls. It is of a light red color, interspersedwith veins of brown, and yields veryreadily to the knife.On the seventh of September we were overtakenby Messrs. Joseph and Thomas Frobisher39 and Mr. Patterson. 40 On the twentiethwe crossed the bay together, composing a fleetof thirty canoes and a hundred and thirty men.We were short of provisions.On the twenty-first it blew hard and snowbegan to fall. The storm continued till the39The brothers Frobisher, Joseph, Thomas, andBenjamin, were among the early British traders tocome into the Northwest. Joseph and Thomas foundedthe firm of Frobisher Brothers, but in 1778 Thomasretired and Benjamin succeeded him. Joseph andBenjamin were active in the formation of the NorthWest Company. Joseph was a noted explorer of westernCanada. He retired from the fur trade in 1798, livingthereafter at Montreal. Editor.40 Charles Patterson was another early British traderin the Northwest, and one of the founders of the NorthWest Company. In 1788 he was drowned with hisentire crew in Lake Michigan near a place still knownas Patterson's Point, in western Mackinac County,Michigan. Editor.245