Volume 1

BOIS DES SIOUX RIVER.
I45
the Panis [Pawnees], the Tetons (a tribe of Sioux on the
Missouri), and the Mandanes.
Red river has two principal branches ; the north one
[Cheyenne river] takes its water out of a large marsh and
some small lakes about 15 leagues from the Missouri, where
there are no woods—nothing but a few willows. It runs E.
within a few miles of Lac du Diable [Devil's lake], opposite
which it begins to have well-wooded banks ; and as it
increases in size, the valley spreads and the banks are high.
This branch is navigable only for small canoes, in the
spring, when the water is high. Beavers are more numerous
than elsewhere ;
grizzly bears are to be seen in droves ; and
it may be called the nursery of buffalo and red deer. It is
a delightful country, but seldom can our Saulteurs kill a
beaver there without falling in with their enemies, who are
no great beaver hunters.
The South branch [Red river itself '^'J
takes its water from
** Henry is noting the origin of Red r, as it was in his day and long afterward
supposed to be—in Lake Traverse, which separates the N. E. corner of
South Dakota from Traverse Co., Minn. Lake Traverse comes very close to
Big Stone 1., a principal source of the Minnesota or St. Peter's r., and in a
certain sense the two great rivers do lay their heads together:
for some details of
this approximation of two lakes, one discharging ultimately into Hudson's bay
and the other into the Gulf of Mexico, see Lewis and Clark, ed. 1893, p. 89.
But: at a place on Red r. called Breckenridge, seat of Wilkin Co., Minn., a
river comes in from the E. whose course is veiy much longer than what is left of
Red r. above that place. Therefore, this is the main continuation of Red r.,
and what remains of the old Red r. between Breckenridge and Lake Traverse
takes a different name—Bois des Sioux or Sioux Wood r.—a phrase found
as " Boise de Sioux " on the latest G. L. O. map of Minnesota. The origin of
this name is found in a certain grove or clump of trees, called Bois des Sioux,
which was "supposed to be the northernmost limit of the undisputed property
of the Sioux on Red River," Keating's Long, II. 1824, p. 13. This section
was also called shortly Sioux r.—a name which sometimes extended much
further down Red r. , in the debatable land which was claimed both by Sioux
and Ojibways. Sioux r. is said by Keating, ibid., p. 12, to be called by the
Sioux themselves Kan toko, "from a thicket of plum bushes near its head."
The Bois des Sioux is said to have been about 9 m. up the river of that name,
i.e., that distance above its confluence with the main branch from Otter Tail 1.
On this understanding. Red r. now comes from the E. through Wilkin Co.,
from Otter Tail Co., Minn., and its course is traced upward a long way further