Near this spot in 1783, a young Ojibwe boy named Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, or Flatmouth, crouched behind a trading post's log barricade on this wah de nah, a sloping or little round hill, while Dakota arrows fell "as thick as snowflakes" around him. A Frenchman known today only as Ah-wish-to-yah, or blacksmith, had ventured into this area, the heart of the best hunting grounds claimed by the Dakota, seeking beaver pelts and other wild game. Flatmouth later told historian William Warren about that winter day when 200 Dakota crossed the stream on the ice to attack French voyageurs and Ojibwe hunters encamped here with Ah-wish-to-yah. The Dakota's "cloud of barbed arrows" was no match for musket balls fired by the French and Ojibwe. It is said that after running out of arrows, the Dakota buried their dead beneath the river's ice before leaving the area. Some people believe this incident gave modern-day Wadena its name.