The Long Portage Part III - A turtle watches history go by....

Placing and finding geocaches should be more than a simple game of hide and seek.  I think the cache should be placed somewhere significant and that the finder should learn something from the visit.  Style points are also worth something.

Last time we stopped by "Turtle Portage", an excellent place for a geocache.  A lot of history has gone past this spot.  But first, a cache worthy of it.

I had the help of my grandson, whose interest in all things creeping, hopping and slithering is beyond compare.   We started with a standard geocache box.  These are made to be durable and waterproof.  The little notice on the top is also nice.

After a quick coat of green and black spray paint, sparing the message of course, we are ready to begin.  

This one was really a lot less work than the GeoBrick, just a pleasant 20 minutes with a four year old applying and snipping black Gorilla Tape.  The goal is not realism but symbolism and I think this turned out rather nicely.

It will be parked near the sign at the head of the portage, waiting patiently for explorers to come by.  As they have been doing for a very long time.  If you look back to the sign shown last time there are some famous names.  And a few less famous ones.  A brief recap:

Pierre Esprit-Radisson Born in Provence circa 1640 this guy had one crazy biography.  Worth a read albeit with some horrific parts.  He essentially started the Hudson Bay Company.  He explored widely, switching sides between the French, English and their various Native allies, seemingly without qualms.  Along with his brother in law built the first European structure in Wisconsin, a crude fort near Ashland.  At various times he was captured by Dutch privateers and joined the navy to help conquer the Caribean island of Tobago.  Things named after him:  communities in Wisconsin, Quebec and Saskatchewan.  Also a street in Minneapolis.  A hotel there took the name and kept it as the Radisson Group became a world wide brand.

Medard de Groseilliers Pierre's brother in law.  Twenty years older he seems to have been less of a free booter but did accompany Radisson on many journeys.  They crossed Turtle Portage in 1659-60.  Things named after him:  Just a Canadian Coast Guard cutter.

Henry Schoolcraft Another bio worth a read.  Explorer, geologist, Indian Agent.  He wrote extensively about his travels and Native culture.  In 1832 he was part of an expedition that found the headwaters of the Mississippi.  He gave it the name "Itasca". It was supposed to sound vaguely Native American but was really a chopped up bit of Latin "Veritas Caput"  Meaning the "true head".  Schoolcraft was here in 1831.

David Owen Less boring than you'd expect a geologist to be.  Serious collector of natural history and such.  Explored this area in the 1840's.  Among geologists his name is powerful ju-ju.

John Owen Now we are getting to more recent times.  Not related to the geology God Owen, his dad was a grocer in Michigan.  As a young man he went off to be a timber scout in the north woods of Wisconsin.  He also married well in 1872, to a young lass named Cora Rust.  Her family kicked in the capital and the Rust-Owen Lumber Company had a good long run from 1875-1955.  They owned a lot of land up this way.  Drummond was a company town entirely owned by Rust-Owen.

Albert Stuntz  was a very early settler in Ashland.  He did a lot of survey work for the government in the 1850's.  Here's a little peek into the difficulties of surveying an untamed frontier:

By our contract with Albert Stuntz we were not only to pay him a bonus equal to what he received per mile from Government, but we were also to furnish men for the work and see him through. In accordance with this agreement some eighteen men and boys, to be used as axemen and chainmen, were brought up from Milwaukee who were as “green as gaugers” and as the sequel proved, about as honest. A nice looking lot they were, when landed upon the dock at La Pointe, out of which to make woodsmen. I think I see them now, shining boots,– plug hats, with plug ugly heads in them, (at least some of them had), the notorious Frank Gale, Mat. Ward and one or two other noted characters being of the number. Their pranks astonished the good people of La Pointe not a little, but they astonished Stuntz more. One half day in the woods satisfied them – they were afraid of getting lost. In less than two weeks they had nearly all deserted and the work had to be delayed until a new squad could be obtained from below.

I'm pretty sure Stuntz never had anything named after him.  But his diaries from the 1850's and 60's are available at the State Historical Society.