Volume 1

SWAMP RIVER—REED RIVER. 69
ordinary by those acquainted with the country. Having
killed a fat cow, we cut off the choice pieces and took
our course for the entrance of Riviere aux Marais,"
where my people had just arrived. The Indians requested
me to wait here, as some of their families were still far
behind. We accordingly encamped.
This small river receives its water out of several marshes
which lie in the open meadows about six leagues distant,
in a direct line W. S. W. It there runs on a very crooked
winding course before it joins Red river. But the banks
are wooded throughout, principally by oak and bois blanc.
As I knew the Indians desired me to leave people to winter
about this place, and having been informed there were
beaver at the entrance of Riviere aux Roseaux," which is
about a mile above us, I went to look for a proper place to
build. I returned about sunset, having pitched upon the
*^ Present name of the small stream which heads in marshes, as Henry says,
about the international boundary of 49° N. between N. Dakota and Manitoba,
flows on a general course N. N. E., and falls into the left side of Red r., a
short distance below the mouth of Roseau r. Thompson calls it Brook of
Swamps, Mar. 13th, 1798, and makes its mouth ^ m. from that of Roseau
r. Keating gives it as Swampy or Petopek r., a mere brook, dry when Long's
party passed in Aug., 1823. In coming here from Morris Henry has passed
places on the W. side of the river called St. Jean Baptiste and Gauthier, and
reached the immediate vicinity of Letellier.
** Present Roseau r., often wrongly Rosseau ; name
translated Reed and
Reedgrass r. ; Brook of Reeds of Thompson, 1798; Indian name Pekwionusk r.
also found, in Keating's Long, II. 1824, p. 80. This is a large river, whose stream
Thompson speaks of as not much less than that of Red r. itself. It gathers its
waters in the great swamps W. of Lake of the Woods, above, on, and below
lat. 49° ; its two principal branches, or North and South forks, contribute to
form East Reed r., which, with Pine r., flows into Roseau 1., in the N. E.
corner of Kittson Co., Minn., whence the main stream meanders W. near the
N. border of that county, crosses 49° into the Provencher district of Manitoba,
33 m. E. of Pembina, at or near the boundary between Ranges vii and viii,
E. of the princ. merid. , and thence pursues a circuitous course to empty into
Red r. through the Nashakepenais Indian reserve, which occupies the E. side
of Red r. between Gauthier and St. Pie. The mouth of Reed r. is 13 m. N.
of 49°, nearly opp. Letellier ; the river is crossed at the station Dominion City
by the Emerson branch of the C. P. Ry. The old boundary line of the Red
Lake Indian reservation ran N. E. from Thief r., across various heads of Reed
r.,
to reach Buffalo pt. on Lake of the Woods.