When the chief could no longer prevail
          on the white men to rest in his teepees,
He guided their feet on the trail
          to the lakes of the winding Rice-River.[AZ]
Now on speeds the light bark canoe,
          through the lakes to the broad Gitchee Seebee;[BA]
And up the great river they row,—­
          up the Big Sandy Lake and Savanna;
And down through the meadows they go
          to the river of blue Gitchee-Gumee.[BB]
Still onward they speed to the Dalles—­
          to the roar of the white-rolling rapids,
Where the dark river tumbles and falls
          down the ragged ravine of the mountains. 
And singing his wild jubilee
          to the low-moaning pines and the cedars,
Rushes on to the unsalted sea
          o’er the ledges upheaved by volcanoes. 
Their luggage the voyageurs bore
          down the long, winding path of the portage,[BC]
While they mingled their song with the roar
          of the turbid and turbulent waters. 
Down-wimpling and murmuring there
          ’twixt two dewy hills winds a streamlet,
Like a long, flaxen ringlet of hair
          on the breast of a maid in her slumber.

All safe at the foot of the trail,
          where they left it, they found their felucca,
And soon to the wind spread the sail,
          and glided at ease through the waters,—­
Through the meadows and lakelets and forth,
          round the point stretching south like a finger,
From the pine-plumed hills on the north,
          sloping down to the bay and the lake-side
And behold, at the foot of the hill,
          a cluster of Chippewa wigwams,
And the busy wives plying with skill
          their nets in the emerald waters. 
Two hundred white winters and more
          have fled from the face of the Summer
Since DuLuth on that wild, somber shore,
          in the unbroken forest primeval,
From the midst of the spruce and the pines,
          saw the smoke of the wigwams up-curling,
Like the fumes from the temples and shrines
          of the Druids of old in their forests. 
Ah, little he dreamed then, forsooth,
          that a city would stand on that hill-side,
And bear the proud name of DuLuth,
          the untiring and dauntless explorer,—­
A refuge for ships from the storms,
          and for men from the bee-hives of Europe,
Out-stretching her long, iron arms
          o’er an empire of Saxons and Normans.

[AZ] Now called “Mud River”—­it empties into the Mississippi at Aitkin.

[BA] Gitchee See-bee—­Big River—­is the Ojibway name for the Mississippi, which is a corruption of Gitchee Seebee—­as Michigan is a corruption of Gitchee Gumee—­Great Lake, the Ojibway name of Lake Superior.

[BB] The Ojibways called the St. Louis River Gitchee-Gumee See-bee—­Great-lake River, i.e. the river of the Great Lake (Lake Superior).