Note I-61 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

R. des Sauteurs, etc., of the French, i. e., River of the Chippewas, with all the uncounted variations of the latter word, from such forms as Ouchipouwaictz to the present Chippewa, Chippeway, or Chipeway. Pike's 1807 text has Sautiaux r., p. 13. Beltrami has Cypewais in text, Cypoway on map. Present usage among geographers favors two p's and no y; the ethnologists incline rather to Ojibwa. This one of the major tributaries of the Mississippi now falls in by its main upper mouth 1½ m. below the end of Lake Pepin, from the N., nearly at a right angle; it is somewhat bottle-nosed—that is, with a contracted orifice of a turgid body of water, though the dilation is not so great as in the case of the St. Croix. The general character of the delta has been already discussed in connection with Beef slough. Pike has this on his right all the way from Alma to L. Pepin. On his left he passes Grand Encampment isl. and dines near Point Teepeeota, already described as the point of that sandbank I should wish to call Carver's Terrace. He next comes to Wabasha, seat of the Minnesota county of that name, so called from the celebrated Sioux chief of whom we read much in Long, I. p. 272, and elsewhere; his name is there spelled Wapasha, and his village was at that time not on this spot, but lower down (Winona). The site of Wabasha duplicates the situation at Point Teepeeota; it is in the Zumbro delta, below the Upper Zumbro outlet, on the point of a sand-bank identical in formation with Carver's Terrace, though much smaller—under 3 m. in length, and less than a mile wide. Passing Wabasha, Pike comes 2 m. to the town now called Read's Landing, at the uppermost point of the Zumbro floodplain, almost opposite the mouth of Chippewa r. Nicollet marks "Roques," i. e., Augustin Rocque's trading-house, in about the right position, i. e. at present site of Wabasha, where Rocque's old chimney was evidence in 1884. This person, whose last name might be spelled with a g as well as his first, very likely lived on more than one spot in the course of his career. Featherstonhaugh informs us that "Ruque's" Indian name was Wajhustachay, and that his house stood on the edge of a high prairie, 50 feet from the water, at S. E. end of L. Pepin, right bank, opp. Chip. r.; which fits in only with the site of present Read's Landing. Here the C., M. and St. P. R. R. bridged the Miss. r. in '82 (Act of Congr., Mar. 28th, '82). As indicated in an earlier note, the Chippewa is one of the main waterways between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes; the connection will be more particularly noted hereafter. Carver went this way in June or July, 1867, after he had wintered up the St. Peter. For some distance from its mouth this river separates Pepin from Buffalo Co.