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DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 



we embarked again, our course was down stream until we reached the point of the 

 great bend nearest Mille Lacs. This part of the river is wide, deep, and filled with 

 wild rice, and is bordered by extensive tamerack swamps, the trees scattered 

 through them being mostly dead, and exhibiting a scene very similar to that 

 described in a previous chapter as occurring on Lac du Flambeau River. The 

 swamps are intersected by occasional narrow ridges, bearing both hard and soft 

 woods. 



Mille Lacs Portage is about two miles long. The first quarter of a mile passes 

 over drift-hills. Between these hills and the Lake is a strip of as good land as I 

 have seen in the Territory, timbered with maple, oak, ash, bass-wood, and birch. 

 It is gently undulating, and admirably adapted for agricultural purposes. A few 

 small meadows occur in this body of land, and granitic and other boulders are met 

 with on its surface, but not in sufficient quantity to interfere materially with its 

 cultivation. 



Mille Lacs is the largest body of water in the Territory southwest of Lake 

 Superior, being about eighteen miles from north to south, and fifteen miles from 

 east to west. On the east side, about one-third the distance down from the north 

 shore, is a point projecting into the lake, and composed of large boulders. The 

 land along the east shore is well timbered with oak, maple, ash, elm, birch, and 

 aspen. The shore is from four to twelve feet high, and walled with a line of 

 boulders, some of which are remarkably large. The lake is shallow for a long 

 distance from the shores, and the bottom entirely covered with boulders. South- 

 east of the point named above is a tamerack swamp, the level of which is lower 

 than that of the lake, — the lake being walled in by a bank ten or twelve feet high, 

 composed of boulders and soil. This heaping up of boulders so as to form barriers 

 higher than the surrounding country occurs also at many other points. At one 

 place the boulders present an inclined wall, ten or eleven feet high, for a long 

 distance ; while the general level of the country is not over seven or eight feet 

 above the waters of the lake. In the southeasterly portion of the lake are several 

 small islands, composed entirely of boulders, piled up sometimes as high as twenty 

 feet. Around one of these islands is a wall of boulders several feet higher than the 

 centre, the formation of which, as well as of the lake barriers, I attribute to the 

 action of ice. On the west side of the lake, near its outlet, is a projecting point, 

 bearing northeast, and in that direction corresponds with the point mentioned on 

 the east shore, and marks, probably, the course of a granite ridge concealed beneath 

 the drift. The boulder-islands, also, are, in all probability, based upon the granitic 

 rocks, which are known to underlie this section of country. Near the point is the 

 largest island in the lake, and the only one covered with a good soil : on it the 

 Indians have gardens. The ridge forming the point is covered with pine. 



Rum River is about twenty-five feet wide at the outlet of Mille Lacs ; in less 

 than a mile it expands into a rice lake, about three miles long, and a quarter of a 

 mile wide. The country at the lower end of the lake is from twenty-five to thirty 

 feet above the level of the water, and is well timbered with large maple, oak, elm, 

 and ash. It is comparatively free from large boulders on the surface. Two other 

 lakes occur in the distance of about five miles, both filled with rice. The last one 



