Upper Hay Lake relics unearth local history

30 years of research has unveiled only possibilities, but no certainty

By Travis Grimler

Ask Ray Nelson and he will tell you: There are layers of history in the soil everywhere you walk in Minnesota.

Hidden in the soil throughout the state, especially near certain bodies of water, are the remnants of human and animal habitats from many generations before.

Thanks to one amateur archaeologist named F.T. Gustavson, who became famous for his finds on Upper Hay Lake east of Jenkins, new information is still being uncovered about the residents of the Pequot Lakes and Jenkins area and how they interacted with the rest of the world.

Gustavson lived in the Pequot lakes area some time after 1906, during which time he frequently walked the shores of Upper Hay Lake, looking for ancient history uncovered by the waves.

Though his practices were not as precise or documented as one would hope for archaeological finds, an entire section of the Crow Wing County Historical Society museum in Brainerd is dedicated to the Native American artifacts he uncovered.

Most famous is the Poualack Pot, a St.

Contributed / Crow Wing County Historical Society museum F. T. Gustavson performed amateur archeology at Upper Hay Lake, uncovering countless artifacts, including a historically significant bowl and a mysterious rifle stock.

Many of the mysteries surrounding this rifle butt could have been solved if just a few more parts were preserved.

Croix-stamped ceramic vessel found at the Upper Hay Lake Archaeological District, a location featuring protected Native American burial mounds dubbed “Fort Poualak.”

The pot fascinated the Minnesota Historical Society so much that they moved a meeting to Gustavson’s home to discuss the pot and his other finds. In 1997, his descendants offered his artifacts to the historical society. Many of the items were sent back to be displayed locally at the Crow Wing County museum, but the pot was not.

Much of the returned collection consisted of the more generic items found where Indigenous people lived: arrowheads, ax heads and similar tools that could give up their story based on shape and materials alone in just a brief examination.

On top of that, Gustavson’s lack of training meant they might not have the records necessary to draw conclusions from the finds based on location. But among those finds was one item that was not so forthcoming with its secrets.

To the untrained eye it was just a broken butt stock from some sort of gun. But to historian and Crow Wing County Muzzleloaders Club founder Nelson, it wasn’t just any gun. It was a clue to the identities of the people who lived on Upper Hay Lake and were likely interred there after death.

The thing is, it has many characteristics that make it nearly anachronistic to what is generally known, or assumed, about the people living in the area. Its uniqueness means there is a lot to learn from this simple broken piece of history.

But it’s likely a puzzle that will never be solved.

There are a few likely facts that fit with the setting. Nelson said the gun was found on Upper Hay Lake somewhere on the shoreline when the water was low.

Though it was not found near the mounds in the archaeological district and its burial mounds, the condition of the item suggests it was once likely deposited with the remains of its former owner, a Native.

“I learned from Charles Hanson and a few of the museums for the fur trade that when they died they took special items with them into the new world,” Nelson said. “What they usually did was break the firearm.”

From there it all gets a little fuzzy.

It’s true that fur traders bartered with guns, which would have resulted in Indigenous people throughout the area having access to firearms that would eventually end up in archaeological sites in similar condition.

But most of those were what are known as “trade guns,” lightweight, black powder hunting guns without rifled barrels.

Though this one has no barrel, Nelson was able to tell, based on other qualities, that this one was a rifle, not a trade gun. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

While it is incomplete, there are many components to the butt stock that lend themselves to different countries of origins, gunsmithing practices and timelines, including: the material, the shape of the metal components, a storage box built into the butt and a chin rest on the inside of the stock.

Each tells a story. In fact, most of them tell completely contradictory stories.

In 30 years of research, Ray Nelson has attempted to learn more about the rifle parts found at Upper Hay Lake by building replicas that are both flint lock and cap style.

Travis Grimler / Echo Journal

The first thing that caught Nelson’s eye, and a big clue all its own, was the wooden box with a cover plate built into the butt.

“What stuck out tremendously was the sliding wood box for keeping components,” Nelson said. “In my years of research now going to museums in Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Canada, I tried to find other guns with these sliding wooden boxes (among artifacts from the same era and region). I have not seen one yet.”

One of the first comprehensive clues was the wood used to make the butt. While many guns of the time period would have used a strong, hearty wood, this rifle was made from birch.

During the early history of Minnesota when this area would have been inhabited by Native Americans, most countries would not have made their gun stocks with birch.

“Birch was the more common wood used for guns made in Norway or Sweden in particular, and Denmark a little bit,” Nelson said.

Furthermore, the lock used in the rifle was of the type Norwegians used.

The shape of the stock further complicated things.

“The cheek rest is prominent,” Nelson said. “It’s very dramatic in the style of the Germans. When they started making rifles in the 1600s, they liked to put large cheek rests on them for your cheek to rest. When they started rifling barrels, they were the first ones to do that. Norwegians seemed to like that as well, but the French never did.”

Next was the lock plate, which had a distinct shape, known in gunsmithing circles as “banana” shaped. This shape gave clues to both the time frame and location of manufacture.

“Studying the chronological development of firearms, this type of lock plate design was around in the early 1700s, like pre-1750,” Nelson said. “It could go a bit later, for sure, but later it went straight instead of curved.”

Nelson said that design was common to French and German areas.

Even what remained of the trigger guard told a story.

“The trigger guard I’m using goes back to the areas in southwest Germany and northeast Germany,” Nelson said.

Together, all the pieces paint a confusing picture of mixing styles possibly common to manufacturers with a less stable geographic base.

“The French Huguenots got out of France,” Nelson said. They were being persecuted and they went to different parts of Germany and England and they went into Denmark and a few other countries. They were known for their craft, and they brought gun making with them and the king of Prussia at the time had them set up shops and teach the local people their trades.”

Nelson said the details point to a manufacture date within 1740-1780, likely from Germany or a Scandinavian country or inspired by that style and built by a gunsmith, possibly from England.

It could have been lost any time from the 1790s into the era of the Battle of Crosslake and later. There are reasons why it could have come from one of several countries of origin. Over 30 years, many possibilities have arisen, but nothing is clear.

The rifle is, unfortunately, missing parts that would have helped provide a better ID.

“It’s missing a lot of important things to get identified as a flintlock,” Nelson said.

As a result, it is even hard to determine if it was flintlock or caplock.

Perhaps the craziest detail is that this rifle, even surrounded as it is with uncertainty, is likely the oldest rifle artifact recovered from a Minnesota archaeological site.

“Based on artifacts I have seen,” Nelson said. “I’m going to guess (the next oldest) is from the 1830s. Before that the Northwest smooth bore trade guns were very common.” candidates by name.

“James McGill met an Indian warrior named Noka (or Nokay) from the Green Bay area,” Nelson said. “He had to have someone guide them here and he made the first fur trade post here in our county in 1771 it came to Minnesota, and who may have owned it.

“It was (Noka’s) stomping grounds,” Nelson said. “They would have been hunting up here all the time, and Noka had a son, and his son died in the Battle of Crosslake. I sometimes wonder, could it have been broken in that battle, gotten mangled, used as a weapon?”

Oddly enough, while the time frame and origin are still puzzling, Nelson feels comfortable theorizing exactly what type of person owned the rifle, thanks to its qualities.

“This was what they called fine grade guns,” Nelson said. “They would trade them to the chiefs only. That was a part of special treaty agreements, sometimes land trades.”

He has even identified at least a few in Crow Wing. Noka, to his credit, for some reason went out one day and shot 30 game animals and presented them to the fur trader for food for the winter.”

Though nothing can be known for sure at this point, Nelson has a preferred theory of where the rifle came from, how and when

If that is true, there would be virtually no better place for Noka’s son and the rifle to be laid to rest than Upper Hay Lake, known by the Ojibwe (Anishanaabe) as “Manitou” or Spirit Lake, likely due to the large burial mounds located nearby.

Regardless of the unfathomable truth of the matter, the rifle is like a Schrödinger’s box of local historical events.

TRAVIS GRIMLER is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5853 or travis. grimler@pineandlakes.com.