Note II-54 — Chapter II · ITINERARY, CONTINUED: ST. PAUL TO LEECH LAKE, SEPTEMBER 22D, 1805-JANUARY 31ST, 1806.

Pike has now (Jan. 29th and 30th) gone up the Mississippi from Grand Rapids to White Oak pt.—not following the river exactly, but taking the cut-off Mr. Grant marked for him. The air-line distance is about 13 m. Supposing him to have taken something like the usual trail, he went as follows: At 3 m. direct above Grand Rapids, 4 m. by the river, he passed Pokegama falls at 1 p. m., Jan. 29th. This is a place where the Mississippi drops about 15 feet over a granular quartz ridge: Pike maps it "Falls of Pakagama 20 Ft. Portage 200 yards." It is naturally one of the best known points on the river in this vicinity. It is visible in part from the car window as you go by on the railroad, but the dam which has been built just above is a more conspicuous object from that point of view. Nicollet calls the cataract Kabikons or Little falls, and more fully Kakabikons or Little-severed Rock falls. At 3¼ m. by the river, above these falls, is the discharge of Lake Pokegama itself. This is by far the largest body of water in the vicinity, having an extreme length of 13 m.; but its form is so irregular, something like a hand with spread-out fingers, that its actual shore-line is very much greater; and a number of smaller sheets of water are dotted about it on all sides. Two of the largest of these are Sisibakwet and Rice lakes. Nicollet renders Pakegomag, "a name applied by the Chippeways to all sheets of water in the vicinity of a river," Rep. 1843, p. 63. Schoolcraft says Peckagama, Allen Pecagama, Owen Pokegoma; Packegamau, and I suppose a dozen more forms of the word, are found; Beltrami has Pakegamanaguen or Hook l.; the form I use seems to be most frequent now. The accent is on the antepenult—Pokeg´-ama. A mile or so below the mouth of this lake Bass brook falls in from the north, discharging from Bass and other lakes; the town of Cohasset is at its mouth. The trail now crosses, or lately did cross, the Mississippi from S. E. to N. W. in this vicinity. It continues westward, past two overflows of the river known as Backwater and Cut-off lakes, respectively, on one side and the other of the Mississippi, continues to a small lake which I suppose to be one of those so said by Pike above, and then strikes for the larger lake he speaks of. This traverse leaves the Mississippi several miles to the left as you go west; for the river makes an extensive sharp bend S., and there receives Vermilion r. (Wanomon r. on Nicollet's map) from the S., at the bight of this bend. Exactly 2¼ m. below the mouth of Vermilion r. is the discharge of Lake Kabukasagetewa (as the name is rendered on the Warner and Foote map). The "large lake" of the above text is evidently that known to the voyageurs as Lac aux Chênes, whence our Oak l., also White Oak l.; from the head of which to Pointe aux Chênes, now Oak pt. or White Oak pt. (Red-oak Point, Nic., p. 63), is exactly 2½ m. This is clearly the place where the good Samaritan Chippewa and his amiable family resided, close by the mouth of Deer r., which Pike charts by this name, and which is still so called. This falls in from the N. through another White Oak l., also called Deer, also Stephen's. Notice that this last (Deer r.) is the stream Beltrami erroneously calls Onomonikana-sibi or Vermilion r., as he fetches it in on the N., both in text and on his map.

Addendum to the above. I found when at Deer River that the nomenclature of the natives does not agree with that on our best maps regarding the lake to be called "White Oak." The first White Oak l. of the above note, and of all our modern maps—the one which Pike comes to before he reaches White Oak pt.—is a small one 1½ × ¾ m., lying chiefly in Sects. 3 and 10 of T. 55, R. 27, 4th M., and through it goes one but not the other of the two courses into which the Mississippi is here widely divided. The people never call this White Oak l., but apply that name to the much larger one through which Deer r. discharges above White Oak pt.—the Deer l. of Nicollet, Stephen's lake of our maps. This is a pear-shaped body of water 2¾ m. in extreme length, with a greatest breadth of over a mile at its lower end. It lies mainly in Sects. 1, 2, and 12 of T. 144, R. 25, 5th M., but with the butt end overrunning into T. 56, R. 27, 4th M., and both the inlet and the outlet of Deer r. being in the latter township. It is thus entirely off Pike's trail, N. and W. of White Oak pt. This lake discharges into a loop of the Mississippi by a short thoroughfare of ½ a mile, ending close above White Oak pt., in the N. E. ¼ of Sect. 13, T. 144, R. 25, 5th M. The miserable hamlet of Deer River—as vile a place as it was ever my bad luck to discover—lies W. of Deer r., and a mile or more N. of White Oak l. Here is the terminus of the D. and W. R. R., a siding of which runs down to the lake at a point ½ a mile W. of the inlet of Deer r., where a pier is built. On crossing the lake to get into and go up the Mississippi the usual route is through the outlet and thence down the Mississippi for nearly a mile, to get into a long, straight cut-off which avoids some great bends. But there is a shorter way still, if one can find it, as I did on coming down—an obscure point directly opposite the pier, in the reeds, where a canoe can be pushed through into the nearest bend, and so save more than a mile. A fact which may have originated or perpetuated the above noted confusion of names is that, above this large White Oak or Stephen's l. there is a point of hard-wood called Little White Oak pt., occupying a position with reference to the larger lake like that which the original Pointe aux Chênes or Oak pt. bears to the lesser lake. A glance at the Engineer chart, or at such a good map as Jewett's, on the scale of 2 m. to the inch, will give a clearer idea of these points than the most elaborate description is likely to convey.