Volume 1

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146 OTTER TAIL FORK OF RED RIVER.
a chain of lakes, which by means of one or two short carrying-places
communicates with the St. Peter's river. This
branch at some seasons is navigable for large canoes, and is
the country where Sioux are generally to be found at any
season. Its course is winding and in some places rapid,
and after passing within sight of Montagne de Chef forms
a junction with the north branch [Cheyenne river] just as
they enter the level country. Several other branches empty
into it, but none from any great distance. From the forks
downward it is a fine river, with a sandy bottom and some
rapids, and is navigable for large canoes.
still— past Fergus Falls, and on to Otter Tail 1., the largest one in the county
past this to, Rush 1.—on to Pine 1. and Little Pine 1.—still on through lakes out
of Otter Tail Co., into Becker Co.—northward further to the so-called Height
of Land 1.—onward through more lakes, into the White Earth Indian reservation—there
through Round 1., Many Point 1., Elbow 1., and others—over the line
into Beltrami Co., in the S. W. corner of which are the sources of the Red
River of the North, fully abreast of the source of the Mississippi in latitude,
and only some 12 or 15 m. due W. of Lake Itasca itself! These upper reaches of
Red r. have not long been fully established, though in their main features they
have been known as Otter Tail r.
They would not be imagined from the latest
G. L. O. map of Minnesota, which cuts off Red r. before it comes even as high
as Fergus Falls, and turns it into the course of its principal branch from the
called Pelican r. ; but they are carefully delineated on the Jewett map. One of
the larger collateral sources of Red r. is Toad r., which comes S. from Toad 1.
into Pine 1. The most practically important relation between Red and Mississippian
waters is probably that between Otter Tail 1. and Portage 1., connecting
Red r. with sources of Crow Wing r. Even so bare an outline as this will
show that Bois de Sioux r. is by no means the true Red r. above Breckenridge,
but merely the discharge of Lake Traverse into Red r. Once again :
far
as we have thus traced the fish-hook bend of Red r. in Minnesota, it does not
compare in length with Cheyenne r. in North Dakota. The source of the
Cheyenne is the most remote origin of Red r.— just as thesourceof the Missouri
is the most remote origin of the Mississippi.
The principal tributary of Lake Traverse is one named Muslinka r. on the
latest G. L. O. map of Minnesota ;
N.,
upon this is Wheaton, seat of Traverse Co.,
Minn. The word means hare or rabbit ; thus, we read in Keating's Long, II.
1824, p. 7 "we stopped to dine upon the banks of what is termed Mushtincha
:
Watapan, (Hare River.)" But Rabbit r. is present name of the next stream
below, mainly in Wilkin Co. Lake Traverse was once the site of a H, B. Co.
post, 2 m. from its head, at the very place where Long found one of the Columbia
Fur Co., in 1823, ibid., p. 226, and pi. 6.