HISTORY AND LOCATION 



The uortliern United States and Canada are dotted with numer- 

 ous picturesque lakes bounded by rolling- hills — legacies of the great 

 ice sheet, which thousands of years ago held this region in its 

 frigid grasp. During its retreat from the upper Mississippi Valley 

 its waters were in part collected in a great lake (Lake Souris) in 

 northern central North Dakota and southwestern Manitoba, occupy- 

 ing the watershed of the present IMouse River, and in part that of 

 the Assiniboine, while further to the north in the valley of the 

 Saskatchewan, was glacial Lake Saskatchewan. 



Before the ice had retreated sufficiently to uncover the northern 

 outlets of these lakes, both of the latter at first drained southward 

 into the Missouri River. Later new outlets were opened, at first 

 thru the James River and later the Sheyenne into Lake Agassiz. 

 "With the retreat of the ice north of the Shej'enne River its drain- 

 age was collected in a broad, shallow valley running from north- 

 west to southeast between longitude 98 and 99 and latitude 47 and 

 4S, while sout?i of this depression a tumbled mass of moraines 

 served as a dam to the glacial waters, thru which different channels 

 at various times conducted them southward into the Sheyenne. Thus 

 was formed the glacial lake Minnewaukan* the forerunner of tho 

 present Devils-Stump Lake complex in North Dakota. 



''We can little comprehend the vast flood of water which passed 

 this way from the southern and western front of the great ice sheet. 

 From the far northwest, including even the basin of the great Assi- 

 niboine River and glacial Lake Saskatchewan, 300 miles to the 

 northward, came the flood of glacial waters through this great chahi 

 of lakes and their connecting rivers, which must have somewhat 

 resembled straits, to the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. This 

 was flood time in the Devils-Stump Lake region, w^hen Lakes Minne- 

 waukan and Wamduska stood at their highest level."* The chief 

 of these outlets led from the western side of the present Stump 

 Lake into the Sheyenne. 



With the development of this outlet the waters of Lake Souris 

 and the extensive drainage area to the north found an easier path of 

 discharge thru Lake Minnewaukan, which at its prime must have 

 carried a \ery large volume of water from the melting ice. Another 



'■'Mluuewaukan or Spirit Water was the Indian name translated bj- the wliite 

 man into Devils Lake. This translation is probably traceable to an Indian legend 

 associating the spirit of the lake with the wild winds which so often transform it 

 into a foaming mass of fury, and which, according to the legend, at one time over- 

 whelmed a party of .Sioux warriors returning from a successful foray against their 

 Chippewa neighbors to the north. Wamduska is the Sioux name of Stump Lake 

 from its fancied resemblance to a serpent, and applied by Simpson (1912) to that 

 lake at the time of its earlier connection with Devils Lake. Because of the fact 

 that botli lakes were at first one body a single name is preferable ; lience I have 

 cliose.n the name of the larger, iMinnewaukan, to apply to both. 



♦Simpson, 1. c. p, 142. 



