A story is told of a great naval battle that was fought on Lake Erie,
nearly two centuries before the first steamer made its appearance on that
placid water. A Wyandot prince, so the tale goes, fell in love with a
beautiful princess of the Seneca tribe, who was the promised bride of a
chief of her own nation. The warrior failed to win the heart of the dusky
maiden, and goaded to desperation, entered the Senecas country by night,
and carried off the lady. War immediately followed, and was prosecuted
with great cruelty and slaughter for a long time. At last a final battle
was fought, in which the Wyandots were worsted and forced to flee in great
haste. The fugitives planned to cross the ice of the Straits (Detroit)
River, but found it broken up and floating down stream. Their only
alternative was to throw themselves on the floating ice and leap from cake
to cake; they thus made their escape to the Canadian shore, and joined the
tribes of the Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. A year later the
Wyandots, equipped with light birch canoes, set out to defeat the Senecas,
and succeeded in inducing them to give combat on the water. The Senecas
made a fatal mistake and came out to meet the enemy in their
clumsily-constructed boats hollowed out of the trunks of trees. After
much maneuvering the birch canoe fleet proceeded down Lake Erie to the
head of Long Point, with the Senecas in hot pursuit. In the center of the
lake the Wyandots turned and gave the Senecas so hot a reception that they
were forced to flee, but could not make good their escape in their clumsy
craft, and were all slain but one man, who was allowed to return and
report the catastrophe to his own nation. This closed the war.

Legends are preserved that lead to the belief that there may have been
navigators of the Great Lakes before the Indians, and it is generally
believed that the latter were not the first occupants of the Lake Superior
region. It is said that the Lake Superior country was frequently visited
by a barbaric race, for the purpose of obtaining copper, and it is quite
possible that these people may have been skilled navigators.

[Illustration: THE WOODEN BATEAUX OF THE FUR TRADERS ]

Commercial navigation of the Great Lakes, curiously enough, first assumed
importance in the least accessible portion. The Hudson Bay Company, always
extending its territory toward the northwest, sent its bateaux and canoes
into Lake Superior early in the seventeenth