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Updated: September 2, 2025
While messages were still passing between the governor and the explorers, there swept down the St. Lawrence to Three Rivers seven canoes of Indians from the Upper Country, asking for Radisson and Groseillers. The explorers were honorable to a degree. They notified the governor of Quebec that they intended to embark with the Indians.
Cartwright laid the plans of the explorers before Charles II. The king ordered 40s. a week paid to Radisson and Groseillers for the winter. They took chambers in London. Later they followed the court to Windsor, where they were received by King Charles. The English court favored the project of trade in Hudson Bay, but during the Dutch war nothing could be done.
Discoverers were greater than governors; still, if the Indians of the Upper Country invited his Excellency, Radisson and Groseillers would be glad to have the honor of his company; as for his servants men who went on voyages of discovery had to act as both masters and servants. D'Avaugour was furious. He issued orders forbidding the explorers to leave Three Rivers without his express permission.
Henceforth Radisson and Groseillers were men without a country. Twice their return from the North with cargoes of beaver had saved New France from ruin. They had discovered more of America than all the other explorers combined.
When Radisson returned, he found that his widowed sister had married Médard Chouart Groseillers, a famous fur trader of New France, who had passed his youth as a lay helper to the Jesuit missions of Lake Huron. Radisson was now doubly bound to the Jesuits by gratitude and family ties. Never did pagan heart hear an evangel more gladly than the Mohawks heard the Jesuits.
There were present, among others, Robert, Cavelier de la Salle, . . . Charles le Moyne, . . . two Godefroys of Three Rivers, . . . Groseillers, . . . Jolliet, . . . Pierre Radisson. Mr. Low's geological report on Labrador contains interesting particulars of the route followed by Father Albanel.
Pierre, named after himself, came first, a rickety sloop of fifty tons with a crew of twelve mutinous, ill-fed men, a cargo of goods for barter, and scant enough supply of provisions. Groseillers' ship, the St. Anne, was smaller and better built, with a crew of fifteen. The explorers set sail on the 11th of July. From the first there was trouble with the crews.
I detained the English sailors at the river-front till M. Radisson had entered the fort and won young Jean Groseillers to the change of masters. Before the Fur Company's ships came, the English flag was flying above the fort and Fort Bourbon had become Fort Nelson. "I bid you welcome to the French Habitation," bows Radisson, throwing wide the gates to the English governor.
At Manitoulin Island were Huron refugees, among whom were, doubtless, the waiting families of the Indians with Radisson. All struck south for Green Bay. So far Radisson and Groseillers had travelled over beaten ground. Now they were at the gateway of the Great Beyond, where no white man had yet gone.
Giving the slip to their noisy companions, Radisson and Groseillers stole out from Three Rivers late one night in June, accompanied by Algonquin guides. Travelling only at night to avoid Iroquois spies, they came to Montreal in three days. Here were gathered one hundred and forty Indians from the Upper Country, the thirty French, and the two priests.
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