NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 227 



called Grande Isle by the Frencli, whicli is the Oitchiminis of the 

 Indians, and the Golcaspi" of my initial narrative of 1832. This 

 lake was the terminus of the respective explorations of Lieutenant 

 Zebulon Pike, U. S. A., in 1806, and Governor Lewis Cass in 

 1820. The points at which they approached it were not, how- 

 ever, the same. Pike visited it in a dog train, on the snow, in 

 the mouth of January, across the land, from the Northwest Com- 

 pany's trading post at Leech Lake. He visited an out-station of 

 that company on Grand Island. Cass landed in July, after trac- 

 ing its channel from Sandy Lake to the entrance of Turtle Eiver, 

 the line of communication to Turtle Lake, which was long the 

 reputed source of the river. This has been called by a modern 

 traveller in the region Lake Julia, that he might call it the Julian 

 source of the Mississippi.f 



I found the Mississippi, at the point where it flows from the 

 lake, to be 172 feet wide, not having lost half the width it had at 

 Sandy Lake, although in this distance it is diminished by the 

 volume of its Leech Lake tributary, which the northwest agents 

 informed Lieutenant Pike, in 1806, to be its largest tributary. I 

 had reached it ten days earlier in the season than Governor Cass, 

 having been exactly one day less in traversing the long line of 

 intervening country from Sault de Ste. Marie. I proceeded directly 

 to Grand Isle, the residence of a Chippewa baud numbering 157 

 persons. This island was found to have a fertile soil, where they 

 had always raised the zea maize. Its latitude is 47° 25' 23''. 

 Not only had I reached this point ten days earlier in the month 

 than the expedition of 1820, but it was found that the state of the 

 water on these summits was very favorable to their ascent. Oza- 

 windib,:}: the Chippewa chief, said that his hunting-grounds em- 

 braced the source of the Mississippi, but that canoes of the size 

 and burden which I had could not ascend higher than the 

 Pemidjegumaug^ or Queen Anne's Lake. I determined to encamp 

 my extra men permanently on this island, with the heavy canoes, 



* This is an anagram composed of the names of Schoolcraft, Cass, and Pike, the 

 geographical discoverers, in reversed order, of the region. 



I Beltrami. 



\ This name is derived from ozaicau, yellovr; ivinisis, hair, and kundila, bone of 

 the forehead or head. 



