1834. Jan. 1st.  My journal for this winter will be almost purely domestic.  It is intended to exhibit a picture of men and things, immediately surrounding a person isolated from the world, on an island in the wide area of Lake Huron, at the point where the current, driven by the winds, rushes furiously through the straits connected with Lake Michigan.  Where the ice in the winter freezes and breaks up continually, where the temperature fluctuates greatly with every wind, and where the tempests of snow, rain and hail create a perpetual scene of changing phenomena.

Society here is scarcely less a subject of remark.  It is based on the old French element of the fur trade—­that is, a commonalty who are the descendants of French or Canadian boatmen, and clerks and interpreters who have invariably married Indian women.  The English, who succeeded to power after the fall of Quebec, chiefly withdrew, but have also left another element in the mixture of Anglo-Saxons, Irishmen or Celts, and Gauls, founded also upon intermarriages with the natives.  Under the American rule, the society received an accession of a few females of various European or American lineage, from educated and refined circles.  In the modern accession, since about 1800, are included the chief factors of the fur trade, and the persons charged by benevolent societies with the duties of education and of missionaries; and, more than all, with the families of the officers of the military and civil service of the government.

In such a mass of diverse elements the French language, the Algonquin, in several dialects, and the English, are employed.  And among the uneducated, no small mixture of all are brought into vogue in the existing vocabulary.  To fouchet, and to chemai, were here quite common expressions.

The continued mildness of the weather enabled the Indians from the surrounding shore to approach the island, not less than fifty-four of whom, in different parties, visited the office during the day.  This day is a sort of carnival to these people, who are ever on the qui vive for occasions “to ask an alms.”  I had prepared for this.  To each person a loaf of bread.

To adult males a plug of tobacco.  No drink of any kind, but water, to a soul.

Snow fell during the day, rendering it unpleasant.

Jan. 2d.  Shabowawa, a Chippewa chief, and part of his band, with the remainder of the Point St. Ignace band, got across the Traverse this morning.  The whole number who visited the office during the day was thirty.  Shabowawa said we might soon expect cold weather.

3d.  Visits from a number of Indians (about twenty), who had not before called, to offer the bon jour of the season.  Among them were several widows and disabled old people, to whom presents of clothing were given.

The atmosphere has been severely cold.  A hard frost last night.  I killed an ox for winter beef, and packed it, when cut into pieces, in snow.  There has been floating ice, for the first time, in the harbor.  The severe weather prevented the St. Ignace Indians from returning.