Near the end of “Uncharted Waters” (Book 3), André and his crew find themselves in a vast water meadow and can’t orient themselves. He despairs that they’ll never find Danny’s father in this wilderness. To pinpoint their location, André’s canoemen briefly glimpse a strange tree. Pretty Mouse, with more experience, recalls a similar tree from a faraway time, which marked a complicated route.
Finally, after days of winding their way through the confounding swamp, André finally comes upon voyageurs carving on that strange tree — a lopstick — being created for the person they are searching for.
Did I make that up?
Nope. They’re real. I’d read briefly about lopsticks, in “With Pipe, Paddle and Song,” a novel by Elizabeth Yates, where an tree standing high against the horizon had been shaped to help voyageur brigades find the right portage or channel into a lake.
Long ago, when I helped accompany a group of nieces and nephews winding back and forth through a water meadow with high grasses, I would have loved to see such a lopstick to assure me of how much farther we needed to go.
I learned (from “Making the Voyageur “by Carolyn Podruchny) that a lopstick was made from the tallest tree, stripped of lower branches, with only a small tuft left at the top. Because they chose a tree on high ground or a point of land, it became a landmark. To increase its visibility, surrounding trees might also be cut down. These lopped trees were also called lobsticks, mais and maypoles.
A lopstick was a signpost among many confusing islands.
In the 1800s, explorer Warburton Pike wrote: “In giving directions to a stranger it is hopeless to describe the points and bends of a monotonous river highway, but a lop-stick does the duty of a signpost and at once settles the question of locality.”
Francis Simpson, the wife of Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was one of the first white women to live in the interior. In 1830, voyageurs honored her on a journey between the Red River and York Factory:
“The Voyageurs agreed among themselves to cut a “May Pole” or “Lopped Stick” for me … it was then barked and mine (being a memorable one) was honored with a red feather, and streamers of purple ribband tied to a poll, and fastened to the top of the Tree … The surrounding trees were then cut down, in order to leave it open to the lake. Bernard (the Guide) then presented me with a Gun, the contents of which I discharged against the Tree, and Mr. Miles engraved my name, and the date, on the trunk so that my “Lopped Stick” will be conspicuous as long as it stands …”
Since voyageurs usually stopped at the same campsites, lopsticks would be seen by many fur trade brigades over time.
Did any old journals include lopsticks?
John Macdonell reported his brigade “slept in sight of the Mai” on Lac La Croix (about 50 miles west of Lake Superior). Aug. 16, 1793 - As Alexander Ross‘s brigade passed a maypole at the mouth of the Berens River in the 1820s, one of the crew recalled creating it 18 years earlier. Nearly 60 years later, the site was known as “Lobstick Island”
- John Franklin sighted one at White Fall along the Hayes River between Hudson Bay and Lake Winnipeg on Oct 2, 1819. He noted that the conspicuous lopstick was a landmark he hadn’t previously noticed, but realized it use in locating routes.
Among other mentions were along the Saskatchewan River (Peter Pangman’s Tree, 1790) and the Columbia River (for Alexander Ross, 1811).
In return for the favor
“… Sometimes the voyageurs make [lopsticks] in honour a gentlemen who happen to be traveling for the first time along the rough … The traveller for whom they are made is always expected to acknowledge his sense of the honour conferred upon him, by presenting the boat’s crew with a pint of grog, either on the spot or at the first establishment they meet with. He is then considered as having paid for his footing, and may ever afterwards pass scot-free.”
(“Hudson Bay; or Every-Day Life in the Wilds of North America During Six Years’ Residence in the Territories of the Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company” by Robert M. Ballantyne, 1848)
Sentinels long gone
Lob pines once stood on the Kaministikwia route between Fort William and Lac la Croix on Knife Lake, Cecil Lake and other points; another was on Maypole Island in Rainy Lake. (“The Voyageur’s Highway” by Grace Lee Nute. Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2002)
Warren and Jackie Bradbury, longtime friends, knew of a lobstick tree not far from their place on Crane Lake years ago. But over time, trees die and this one stands only in memory.
If we’d paddled past lopsticks on my first canoe trip back in the ’60s, I know our leaders would have pointed them out. But after 200 years, given storms, wind and fire, probably none were still standing. And I bet no new ones will be created in the BWACW.
Still, it’s fun to imagine the ceremony of one being carved to honor someone paddling through for the first time.
Pictured above: Indians track past a lopstick (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).
Sources:
- “Making the Voyageur” by Carolyn Podruchny. University of Press (Lincoln, Nebraska, 2006)
- “Pipe, Paddle and Song: The Story of the French-Canadian Voyageurs” by Elizabeth Yates. (Ignatius Press, Bethlehem Books, Bathgate North Dakota or San Francisco, 1968) Yates earned a Newbery Medal for children’s literature in 1951.
- “The Voyageur’s Highway” by Grace Lee Nute. Minnesota Historical Society Press (St. Paul, Minnesota, 2002)
- Wikipedia: Lobstick
Final Thoughts
- Find the lopstick in Book 3, “Uncharted Waters” in paper or ebook.
- Read the whole series Books 1 and 2 — “Waters Like the Sky” or “Treacherous Waters.” Organize a book group and get signed copies. Or order for your grandkids.
- Come to my presentation on “Women in the Fur Trade (There were some??)” at the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, 1-3 p.m. Saturday, March 15.
- Subscribe to this blog and read posts as they are published!
- For what I’m currently researching or quirky discoveries, visit me on Facebook or Instagram: I love your comments.
- Have your own story on what might happen? Send me your chapter of fan fiction!
- Book me as a speaker.
- Ask your library, local school, gift shop to buy copies.
Currently reading:
“Fur Trade Nation: An Ojibwe’s Graphic History” written and illustrated by Carl Gawboy. AnimikiiMazina’iganan: Thunderbird Press (Cloquet, Minnesota, 2025)
“Our Story of Eagle Woman: Sacagawea, They Got it Wrong” by the Sacagawea Projecty Board of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Ariakra Nation. The Paragon Agency (Orange, California, 2021)
