268 APPENDIX. 



Indian maps, and obtaining at Ottowa Lake the best and most 

 recent information of the distance and the actual state of the 

 water, I found neither of the foregoing routes practicable, with- 

 out extending my time so far as to exhaust my supplies. I was 

 finally determined to relinquish the Lac du Flambeau route, by 

 learning that the Indians of that place had dispersed, and by 

 knowing that a considerable delay would be caused by reassem- 

 bling them. 



The homeward route by the Mississippi was now the most 

 eligible, particularly as it would carry me through a portion of 

 country occupied by the Chippewas, in a state of hostility with 

 the Sioux, and cross the disputed line at the mill. Two routes, 

 to arrive at the Mississippi, were before me — either to follow 

 down the outlet of Ottowa Lake to its junction with the Chippewa, 

 and ascend the latter to its mouth, or to quit the Ottowa Lake 

 branch at an intermediate point, and, after ascending a small and 

 very serpentine tributary, to cross a portage of 6,000 yards inta 

 Lake Chetac. I pursued the latter route. 



Lake Chetac is a sheet of water about six miles in length, and 

 it has several islands, on one of which is a small Chippewa vil- 

 lage and a trading-post. This lake is the main source of Red 

 Cedar River (called sometimes the Folle Avoine), a branch of the 

 Chippewa River. It receives a brook at its head from the direc- 

 tion of the portage, which admits empty canoes to be conveyed 

 down it two pauses, but is then obstructed with logs. It is con- 

 nected by a shallow outlet with Weegwos Lake, a small expanse 

 which we crossed with paddles in twenty-five minutes. The 

 passage from the latter is so shallow, that a portage of 1,295 

 yards is made into Balsam of Fir or Sapin Lake. The baggage 

 is carried this distance, but the canoes are brought through the 

 stream. Sapin Lake is also small ; we were thirty minutes in 

 crossing it. Below this point, the river again expands into a 

 beautiful sheet of water, called Red Cedar Lake, which we were 

 an hour in passing ; and afterward into Bois Francois, or Rice 

 Lake. At the latter place, at the distance of perhaps sixty miles 

 from its head, I found the last fixed village of Chippewas on this 

 stream, although the hunting camps, and other signs of tempo- 

 rary occupation, were more numerous below than on any other 



