There was a period of missionary activity in northern Wisconsin, starting with the French Jesuits and later with American missionaries (as described below).
The source of the following excerpted text is Marshall, Albert M. 1954. Brule Country. North Central Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN.
From the accounts of William Boutwell and Edmund Ely, we can get a picture of the Brule – Upper St. Croix area during the period 1832-1846. The main missionary establishment was at La Pointe [WI], which was the principal supply depot for fur traders in the Lake Superior region. The men of the gospel followed the traders and spent time with Native Americans in the area.
Two routes were established by the mission people in their travels between La Pointe and Lake Pokegama, a convenient point near the confluence of the St. Croix and Snake rivers. In the winter time when the rivers and lakes were frozen they struck across the barren upland country from the based of Chequamegon Bay to an Indian village on the St. Croix at approximately the present location of Gordon. The village consisted, in the words of Ely, of “but three houses built of bark and this lodge.” The lodge he mentions was that of the son of Kabomob or Kabimobi, chief of the village. There on June 28, 1834, Ely relates “we have been served to a good supper of fish in Indian style viz (boiled) served up in a large dish leaving us to pick it out with our fingers without seasoning.” This first route continued down the St. Croix from Kabimobi’s village until the mouth of the Snake was reached. Then the wayfarers struck up the Snake to Lake Pokegama.
The alternate route employed canoes the whole length of the journey. The travelers paddled along Lake Superior from Madeline Island, then up the Brule to its source, and from there after portaging, down the St. Croix. Reverend William Boutwell was the first Protestant clergyman to view the Brule. He had accompanied Schoolcraft on his expeditions in 1832 and caught his first glimpse of the stream on August 2 as the party was on its way back from the Mississippi Valley.
Boutwell wrote: “From Kabimobi’s village to the portage [the St. Croix – Brule portage] thirty to thirty-five miles. The portage is 1850 yards or about two miles over a pitch pine ridge, which the fire has almost leveled of all its growth.”
“Embarked near the head of the Brule, which rises near the foot of the pine ridge in a boiling spring, whose waters divide, a part entering the Upper St. Croix Lake, and the other forming this stream. [Marshall notes here that Boutwell was mistaken. The source of the St. Croix and the Brule is in the same muskeg swamp, but there is no common spring.] The water here is an fine as any well water I ever drank.”
Boutwell recounts his difficulties in navigating the narrow upper reaches of the [Brule] river. “Embarked at half past six and at eight found ourselves half a mile or so. The water was so low, we formed a dam with our oilcloth, which was of much service. I wandered down the savannah nearly a mile and a half, and waited until nearly nine for the canoes, when the signal was given for me to return. The musketoes were not a little annoyance in the high grass, weeds, and bushes. Our march today may be estimated at thirty-five miles.”
The following day the men were still battering their way through the alder-choked waters. Mr. Boutwell reflects, “Never was I in a much worse hole than here ….. the alders on each bank met interlocked in the middle of the stream, through which we were obliged to force our way. But what is a matter of no little surprise to me is that this is the highway to two or three posts, and yet you would hardly suppose a rat even could pass. It must not have been much better than now when Carver passed, if not, I trust he has a faint recollection of it. Our canoe was well filled with sticks, leaves, bugs, worms, and spiders of every kind ….. Of all the streams I have seen, this is the most dismal for ten to fifteen miles from its head.”