Volume 1

CROSS LAKE—LAKE NAMAKAN. 1/
up for the night. Mosquitoes and sandflies were very
troublesome. We here found Indians making canoes.
July joth. At daybreak we embarked and came to the
first Petit Portage de la Croix, which is 200 paces long ; then
through a crooked piece of water to the
la Croix, which is 400 paces ;
thence
middle Portage de
it is but a short distance
to the last Petit Portage de la Croix, which is but 50 paces
over. We then loaded and descended the little Riviere la
Croix to Vermillion lake, between which and Lac Namaycan
we are sometimes obliged to make a portage of 300
paces, when the water is low. We came on through the
last-mentioned lake to Pointe de Sable, where we found
some Indians making canoes. Here we gummed, reembarked,
and came to the traverse.*" The wind blew a
and beyond this the way narrows to what Henry calls Riviere la Croix, 4 m.
long, leading S. W., thence N. W., into Vermillion 1.
Cross 1. can hardly have been so named from its own shape, for that is more
like a broad, short ox-bow ; but it may be called something like a cross if we
take into account its two most important connections, as collateral with those
we have already traced. These are : on the N. E. , with Riviere Maligne, Malign,
or Sturgeon r.,
and on the N., about the middle of the lake, with Namakan r.,
alongside La Croix Indian village. The Malign River connection is specially
notable because, in Henry's time, it afforded what was called the " new route"
from Lac la Croix, /. e. , a route to the newly established post at Kaministiquia
(Fort William). We shall recur to this route later on, when Henry first takes
it. The Namakan r. is simply another connection between Lac la Croix and
Namakan 1., to be presently noticed. Among other ways out of Cross l..may
be mentioned one by Wild Goose r. to a chain of small lakes to the N. E.;
Whitson's portage, N., over to Wolsley or Donald 1.;
W., on the Dawson route to Namakan 1.
''^
and Neguaquon portage,
That is, the crossing of Lac Namaycan. Thompson calls this Lac le Mecan,
as if it were French ; McKenzie maps " L. Micane "; but it is an Indian name,
now rendered Namakan, Namekan, Namaukan, or Nameukan, referring to
a place at a fall where the natives speared sturgeon.
Before coming to the lake
proper, Henry passes from his small, narrow Vermillion 1., still so called, to
present Crane 1., which lies mostly off to the S. or left, but conducts directly
into Sand Point 1.
This last is named from Henry's Pointe de Sable, or Sand
pt, and appears to have been taken as a part of Namakan 1., separated from
the rest by a narrow passage. From this passage, where Namakan 1. may be
said to begin, the main channel is very circuitous into Rainy 1., being first about
W., then N., then E., to a total distance of some 18 or 19 m., or to the vicinity
of Kettle falls, which, as it were, guard the entrance into Rainy 1. But there