Note VII-22 — Chapter VII · GEOGRAPHY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.[VII-1]

The lake which Pike calls Winipie is the large body of water in British America, through which the combined streams of the Assiniboine and Red River of the North find their way into Hudson's bay, and which we know as Lake Winnipeg; but this does not further concern us now. Pike's Lake Winipeque is what we now call Lake Winnibigoshish, on the course of the Mississippi. The French forms of the latter name, such as Ouinipique, etc., whence our Winipeque, Winipec, Winipeck, etc., are diminutizing terms, as if to say Little Lake Winipeg. There can be no occasion for confounding the two lakes, notwithstanding the similarity and sometimes the identity of their names.

Lake Winnibigoshish is that very large dilatation of the Mississippi which lies next below Cass l.: see note⁸, p. 159, for the distance between the two, and details of that section of the river which connects them. The variants of its name are moderately numerous: Winipeque, as above, but Winipec on Pike's map; Wenepec, Lewis and Clark's map, 1814; Little Winnepeck, Long; Winnipec, Beltrami, Schoolcraft; Winnepeg and Big Winnipeg, Allen; Winibigoshish, Nicollet, Owen—this last the only name now used, generally with doubled n, and with some variants, like Winnepegoosis, etc. This is the second largest body of water in the whole Itascan basin, exceeded only by Leech l., and much exceeding Cass l.; its area is probably not far from that of Lake Pepin, but the shape is very different. The figure is squarish, with the N. W. and S. W. corners rounded off, and the N. E. corner extended into a well-marked bay; the main diameters are about 11 m. from N. to S., and 7½ from E. to W.; the area thus indicated is little encroached upon by projecting points, so that the shore line is shorter than usual in proportion to the extent of waters; the collateral feeders of the lake are comparatively few and unimportant. The lake lies partly in no fewer than eight townships (each 6 × 6 m. sq.); but it only slightly encroaches on five of these, occupying nearly all of T. 146, R. 28, 5th M., the greater part of T. 145, R. 28, and about half of T. 146, R. 27: actual area thus equivalent to rather more than two townships, or over 72 sq. m. The construction of the government dam at the outlet has decidedly altered the shore line, and modified other natural features; the overflow due to this obstruction has inundated the original shore contour in the low places, formed some backwater expansions, and drowned countless trees. Many of these stand stark and black where they grew, far out from the present shore line, which itself is piled with drift-wood in most places. Snags also abound all along the wooded shores, and the water is so shallow that some beds of bulrushes rise above the surface a mile or more from land. The scene is desolate and forbidding. Add to this a danger of navigation to an unusual degree for the frail birch-bark canoes which alone are used on Winnibigoshish. The lake is too large to be safely crossed in such boats at any time. Even the Indians habitually sneak to the shore through the snags and rushes; for the water is very shallow, easily churned up to quite a sea. Sudden squalls and shifting currents are always to be expected, and one runs considerable risk in venturing where land cannot be made in a few minutes, if necessary. It would be nothing, of course, to a well-built keel-boat with sail and oars; but a birch-bark is quite another craft. I have seen Winnibigoshish as smooth as glass, and then in a few minutes been glad to put ashore, to escape a choice between swamping or capsizing, amid whitecaps and combers at least four feet from crest to hollow, breaking on a lee shore full of snags and piled with driftwood. Good landing places are not to be found all along; most of the shore is low, and much of it consists of floating-bog, in which a man may sink as easily, and less cleanly, than in quicksand, if he sets an incautious foot. The water is so impure as to be scarcely fit for drinking; the lake is a sort of cesspool for all the sewerage of the basin whose waters pass through it. Winnibigoshish, in short, is dreary, dirty, deceitful, and dangerous.

The Mississippi enters this reservoir in the S. W. part, at a point in the S. W. ¼ of Sect. 36, T. 146, R. 29, 5th M., where it sweeps around a firm bank, steep enough to be cut in some places, and on which some Indians live; quite a little delta extends far out into the lake, overgrown with bulrushes to such an extent as to hide the opening. But it is not difficult to thread any one of several ways through these to the high bank just said, which is the land-mark; a more conspicuous one, from a distance, is a piece of high woodland whose point is due S. ½ m. from the inlet. Hence southward is the nearest approach of Leech l.; a traverse offers by means of Portage l. (Nicollet's Lake Duponceau), though the carrying-place is somewhat over 2 m. long.

Passing northward, to our left as we start from the Mississippian inlet to go around the shore, the first prominent feature is Raven's point, distant from the inlet 4 m. The maps all represent this as much longer and sharper than it looked to my eye; probably much of the point that was once land is now under water, owing to the dam. It is the site of a squalid village of Chippewas, who have been civilized into the whole assortment of our own vices. A considerable stream falls in here, which I suppose is Kaminaigokag r. of Nicollet and Owen, though it is nameless on more modern maps. Its mouth is in Sect. 18, T. 146, R. 29, close to the N. border of Sect. 19; near by is a lake about a mile in diameter, probably due to overflowage. Rounding Raven's point and proceeding N. 4 m. further, we come to a little bay into which flows a considerable stream from the W. This is Third r., often marked "III. R." The reason for this name will presently appear. Schoolcraft in Narr. Journey of 1820, pub. 1821, p. 246, calls it "Thornberry river, or La rivière des Epinettes," but F. épinette does not mean "thornberry": see note²⁰, p. 319. The mouth of Third r. falls in the N. W. ¼ of Sect. 33, T. 147, R. 28. Coasting now E. along the N. shore, we round the prominence which defines Third River bay, and which I call Windy pt. from my experience there—it had no name that I could discover. It consists of a floating-bog for some distance back, and in this morass, further eastward, a small creek empties in Sect. 35 of the T. and R. last said; this may be called Bog cr., if no earlier name can be found; it is not one of the regularly enumerated streams. A mile and a half eastward of Bog cr., nearly or exactly on the line between Sect. 36 of the same township and Sect. 31 of T. 147, R. 27, is the mouth of Pigeon r. No other name is heard on the spot; but this is Second r. or "II. R." of the geographers. Schoolcraft, l. c., called it Round Lake r., and Round l. is present name of its principal source. There is a good landing here on a bit of beach under a firm, bluffy bank, the site of the most decent and well-to-do Chippewa village about the lake. Three and a half miles E. S. E. of Pigeon r. is the wide, irregular opening of Cut Foot Sioux r., otherwise First r., or "I. R.," which discharges from a system of lakes, the nearest one of which is marked Cut Toe l. by Owen, and Keeskeesedatpun l. on the Jewett map of 1890. This is the river called Turtle Portage r. by Schoolcraft, l. c. Several houses stand on and under the high land on the E. or left bank, a fraction of a mile back of the opening, among them the trading-house of one Fairbanks, where the usual robberies are perpetrated under another name, but without further pretense of any sort. Four miles from the mouth of the Cut Foot Sioux, in a direction about S. S. E., is the outlet of the Mississippi, at the bottom of a large bay, offset from the rest of the lake by prominent points of land. The separation of this bay from the main body of waters is scarcely less well-marked than that of Pike bay from the rest of Cass l. I propose to call it Dam bay. The points of land which delimit its opening into Lake Winnibigoshish are: A long linguiform extension from the S., occupying all the ground not overflowed of Sects. 15 and 16, T. 146, R. 27, which may be designated Tongue pt.; and opposite this, on the N., a much less extensive prominence, which may become known as Rush pt., in Sect. 10 of the T. and R. last said. Paddling 1½ m. from Cut Foot Sioux r., we go through the strait between Tongue and Rush pts., and are then in Dam bay, a roundish body of water about 2½ m. in diameter. At the S. end of this is the short thoroughfare (outlet of the Mississippi), less than a mile long, which leads into Little Lake Winnibigoshish, and has been dammed at its lower end, in the S. W. ¼ of Sect. 25, necessitating, of course, a portage of a few yards in canoeing. The dam in part consists of a solid embankment, stretching from the S.; the rest is the wooden construction for raising and lowering a series of gates by which the flow of water can be regulated. This work looks sadly in need of repair, and is said to be none too secure. At the N. end of the dam is a high wooded hill, a fine spring of water, and some vacant buildings; on the other side is a narrow pond over a mile long, called Rice l.

Immediately below the dam, the Mississippi dilates into Little Lake Winnibigoshish (once Rush l.), of irregularly oval figure, 2¾ m. long by scarcely over 1 m. in greatest breadth, its longest diameter about N. W. to S. E. At a point near the S. E. is the portage, or carrying place, over to Ball Club l., whose head is there distant about a mile: see note⁵⁶, p. 150. The outlet of the Mississippi is on the S., in the N. W. ¼ Sect. 6, T. 145, R. 26. Thence the river flows scarcely W. of S. for 3 m. direct, but I judge fully 6½ by its extremely tortuous channel, to a place in Sect. 24, T. 145, R. 27, where some rapids occur; these, however, are easily shot. The further course of the river is S. E., 8 m. direct, but more than twice as far by the bends, to the confluence of Leech Lake r., or Pike's "Forks of the Mississippi": see back, note last cited, p. 151. This whole section of the Mississippi, from Little Lake Winnibigoshish to the mouth of Leech Lake r., is easy canoeing down, with plenty of smooth, swift water, even at low stages, and good places to camp all along on the wooded points against which the channel continually abuts as it bends from side to side of the low bottom-land, mostly overgrown with reeds (Phragmites communis) and bulrushes (Scirpus lacustris), but toward Leech Lake r. becoming meadowy and thus fit for haying. Besides the main bends, or regular channel, there are a great many minor sluices or cut-offs, practicable for canoeists; and one is borne quickly along by the current, without minding much whether one is in the channel or not. This way down, though circuitous and several times as far as the route by Ball Club l., which lies off to the left as you descend, is decidedly preferable; but going up river I should advise one to take the route through Ball Club, and portage over to Little Lake Winnibigoshish.