Winnipeg is the first lake of importance which the traveller _passes through_ on his way up the Mississippi from Crow-Wing, and it is a namesake of the great northern lake. The banks of the river throughout this long distance do not average more than about ten feet in height, and are all the way covered with a stunted growth of trees, where the birch, the elm, the pine, and the spruce mostly predominate. It is so exceedingly winding here, that by making a portage of fifteen rods, you may often save some three or four miles of canoe travel. The stream varies from an eighth to half a mile in width; sometimes shallow and rapidly running over a rocky bed, sometimes widening into a shallow lake, and sometimes deep, and running sluggishly through a soil of clay or sand, and almost blocked up with snags.
The meaning of Winibigoshish, or Winnipeg, is, the grand reservoir, or depôt of water. The lake is fifteen miles in length and perhaps ten in width. It is nearly round, has no islands, but a gravelly and sandy bottom, and is surrounded by a handsome beach; the water is clear and shallow, and it contains no fish but those that I have elsewhere mentioned as peculiar to this section of the Mississippi. The surrounding country is a dead level, composed of continuous woods, which are every where interspersed with lakes and rice swamps, where unnumbered waterfowl have lived and multiplied for centuries.
The only inhabitants that we found on the shores of Winnipeg, were three bands of Chippeways, numbering in all about one thousand souls. We pitched our tent in the midst of their encampment, or village, and managed, so far as I was concerned, to spend a day and night among them quite pleasantly. Immediately on my arrival there, I heard something about a contemplated bear hunt. It happened to be the month when this animal performs its annual journey to the south, whence it returns in October. A number of them had already been killed, and there was a crossing place on the Mississippi, where a good marksman might take one almost at any time. I found that there were but two men going on the hunt, and, as a present of tobacco soon initiated me into their good graces, the party of course was increased to three. We started at sunset and descended to the crossing place in a canoe, where we ambushed ourselves in one of the wildest recesses in the forest, seated on a mossy rock that commanded an opening between the trees, while our canoe was hidden by a willow that bent gracefully over the stream. It was a clear, still night, but quite dark, as there was no moon. Here we spent a number of hours, without uttering a word; but listening meanwhile to the dismal shriek of an owl, or the silvery dropping of the dew on the gently flowing river. Finally, however, one of the Indians tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed to a large black object, which I saw was a bear just wading into the water, directly on the opposite side from where we were seated. I had been told not to fire until the signal was given, and so the following five minutes seemed longer than an ordinary hour, to my impatient mind. The bear took it quite leisurely, not dreaming that an enemy was so near. But just as his feet touched the bottom on our side of the stream, the Indians gave me a nod, and raising our several guns, we all three fired at the poor animal, who dropped into the water quite dead, creating around him a crimson pool. We shipped the animal on board the canoe, paddled to the village, and hanging it on the high limb of a tree, retired to our several wigwams and slept until morning.