Volume 1

THE LAKE OF THE WOODS. 23
who had made canoes and were all intoxicated with liquor
received for them. Some days ago they were much inclined
to be insolent, and talked about firing upon us. However,
we purchased a few fish and dried hurtleberries, and proceeded
on our journey without molestation. We had left
them but a short time when a sturgeon almost jumped into
thus we find the elder Henry saying Lake des Isles, with reference to July 30th,
1775) ^t p. 242 of his book, pub. i8og. The expression, Sakahigan Pekwaonga
or Lake of the Island of Sand Mounds, occurs in Keating's Long, 1824 ; and
Lake of the Sand Hills is a current designation of that main body of water which
now represents a part of the whole Lake of the Woods of Henry's time. Minnititi,
Mininittee, Minitie, etc., are forms of an Indian name to be found in
French and English print. The historical Lake of the Woods is really a cluster
of four lakes, or a main (southern) lake with three principal bays or offsets, on
the N. E., N., and N. W., respectively ; these three being now separately
designated Whitefish bay (or 1.), Clearwater 1., and Lac Plat (or Shoal
1.), when the name Lake of the Woods is restricted to the said main body.
A multitude of lesser arms, offsets, or collections of water are also now named.
The part known as Clearwater 1. is on the old route from Rainy r. to Rat portage
; Whitefish bay and Lac Plat lie entirely off the route, to the right and left
respectively. The main body of water (to which we will now restrict attention)
is well marked off from the rest by a great projection of land on the E. , known
as The Peninsula, leaving but a narrow waterway northward, further occluded by
clusters of islands, large and small. This is the body which acquired the distinctive
official designation of
Lake of the Woods by the Treaty of Ghent, Dec.
24th, 1814, which adjusted various matters growing out of the War of 1812, and,
among these, some boundary disputes. The thus restricted Lake of the Woods
extends irregularly E., S. of The Peninsula, into Sebascong bay and other projections,
not even yet very accurately known or mapped ; and on this side of
the lake is also the mouth of Big Grassy r., in Ontario. On the S. is the principal
affluent. Rainy r. , as we have already seen, separating the United States from
Canada (Minnesota from Ontario). On the S. E. War Road r. empties, in
Minnesota, and in a sort of bay marked on the N. by a projection now called
Buffalo pt. This is an important point, almost exactly on the parallel of 49**
N., and therefore as nearly on the line between Minnesota and Manitoba (for
reasons which will presently appear) : it is occupied by the Canadian Indian
reserves called Ayashawash and Powawassan ; it is also historically interesting
as the site of the old French post built by Verendrye in 1732, named Fort St.
Charles in honor of Charles de Beauharnois, governor of Canada, and abandoned
before 1763 ; it is the establishment frequently heard of in early annals either by
this name, or as the " old French post" on the W. side of the lake ;
e. g., the
elder Henry, writing of 1775, speaks of it thus, and adds that it had been frequented
by numerous bands of Chippeways, already almost entirely destroyed by
the Nadowessies (Sioux). N. of Buffalo pt. is the mouth of Reed r., a small