Many a pleasant day, or week, one might undoubtedly spend at the Sault
Ste. Marie, or at Mackinac; but if you have only turned through the
straits and gone southward again to Chicago through Lake Michigan, do not
think of saying that you have taken the trip on the Great Lakes. To me the
Great Lakes will always mean Lake Superior. It is something unique in the
geography of the world, and you have the consciousness of your actual
height above the level of the sea as you rarely have on any elevated land
that is not actually a mountain. Ruskin says that for him the flowers lose
their light, the river its music, when he tries to divest any given
landscape of its associations with human struggle and endeavor. Our New
World scenery, of course, has little of that wonderful charm of
association; but there is something singularly impressive in the mere
silence and vastness of our great Northern solitudes.

We entered Lake Superior late in the afternoon, and the only event of the
evening was a magnificent aurora. Toward midnight the gorgeous tints
changed to a thin wedge of perfectly white light, against which in a
duskier white the sails of passing vessels were distinctly outlined,
though no hulls were visible.

At Marquette, in the morning, a party of Finnish emigrants on board left
the ship. Half a dozen Americanized Finns, who had evidently been the
inspiring cause of this influx of new citizens, had come to the wharf to
greet the new arrivals. They had the same short stature, the same stolid
features, as their relatives on board; but there was a difference. The
white shirt, the clean collar, the smart straw hat and vivid necktie, with
a vigorous step, alert manner, decisive tones, and a certain tendency to
help the women with their heavy boxes, distinctly individualized those who
had been awhile under American influence.