CHAPTER XXVI.
Geographical account of Leech Lake—History of its Indians, the Mukundwas—The expedition proceeds to the source of the Crow-Wing River, and descends that stream, in its whole length, to the Mississippi.
Leech Lake is a large, deep, and very irregularly-shaped body of water. It cannot be less than twenty miles across its extreme points. I requested the chief to draw its outlines, furnishing a sheet of foolscap. He began by tracing a large ellipsis, and then projecting large points and bays, inwardly and outwardly, with seven or eight islands, and that peculiar feature, the Kapuka Sagotawa, which I apprehend to originate in gigantic springs. The following eccentric figure of the lake is the result.
This lake has been the seat of the Mukundwa, or Pillagers, from early days. The date of their occupancy is unknown. The French found them here early in the seventeenth century, when they began to push the fur trade from Montreal. They were the advance of the Algonquin group, who, when they had reached the head of Lake Superior, proceeded still towards the west and northwest. Two separate bodies assumed the advance in this migratory movement, one of which went from the north shore, at the old Grand Portage, north-northwest, by the way of the Rainy Lakes, and the other went northwest from Fond du Lac. The former soon earned for themselves the title of Killers, or Kenistenos,[ [180] and speak a distinct dialect; the other, whose language continued to be, with little variations, good Odjibwa, acquired in a short time the name of Takers, or Mukundwa. The Kenistenos advanced, through the Great Lake Winnepeck, and up its inflowing waters, to the Portage du Trait, of the great Churchill or Missi-nepi (much water) River, where they sent up a skinned frog, in derision of the feebler Athapasca race, whom they here encountered. Mackenzie's Voyages, p. lxxiii. Hist. Fur Trade. The Odjibwas were led from Chegoimegon, in Lake Superior, by two noted chiefs, called Nokay and Bainswah, under whom they drove the Sioux from the region of Sandy Lake and the source of the Mississippi. (Ethnological Researches, vol. ii. p. 135.)
Leech Lake.—a, Rush Bay; b, Leech Lake River; c, Three Points; d, Boy's River; e, Bear Island; f, Pelican Island; g, Two Points; h, Ottertail Point; i, Chippewa Village; j, Sugar Point; k, Carp River; l, Old N. W. House; m, Goose Island; n, Encampment, July 16; o, Trading House Am. P. Co.; p, Flatmouth's House; q, Chippewa Village; r, Encampment, July 17; s, s, Route to Crow-Wing River; t, Sandy Point; u, Big Point; v, Sandy Bay River.
Another party of this Algonquin force, which conquered the country lying round the sources of the Mississippi, proceeded through the Turtle River to Red Lake, and thence descended into the valley of the Red River of Hudson's Bay, where their descendants still reside. Large portions of these mingled with the Canadian stock, forming that remarkable people called Boisbrules. These advanced parties pressed into the buffalo plains, along the Rivers Assinabwoin and Saskatchawine, which is the ultimate western area of the spread of the Algonquin language. And to this migration the Blackfeet are believed to be indebted for the intermixture of this language which exists, and which Mr. Gallatin has erroneously supposed to arise from original elements, in the Blackfeet tongue.
This lake yields in abundance the corregonus albus, a fish which is unknown to the Mississippi, and which delights only, it appears, in very limpid and cold waters.