On July 2, 1679, Daniel Greysolon, Sieur DuLuth, wrote of planting the flag of France's King Louis XIV at a large village on Mille Lacs Lake, where, he said, never a Frenchman had been, and many believe this encounter took place at the Vineland Bay archaeological site near the northeast end of Ogechie Lake. Accounts of early European visitors reported forty villages of Dakota people in the Mille Lacs area and regarded Mille Lacs as the political, social, and spiritual center of the Dakota nation. For over a century, archaeologists have studied the Mille Lacs landscape to answer questions about the ancient past not found in historic records, and more than 30 archaeological sites have been discovered at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park.