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Half the boatmen would go ahead with Jemmeraie if M. de la Vérendrye would remain with the other half at Lake Superior as a rear guard for retreat and the supply of provisions. So the explorer suffered his first check in the advance to the Western Sea.
If the supplies had not come, the explorer could neither have advanced nor retreated in spring. It was a risk that De la Vérendrye did not intend to have repeated. Suspecting that his merchant partners were dissatisfied, he sent Jemmeraie down to Montreal in 1733 to report and urge the necessity for prompt forwarding of all supplies.
Equipping four canoes, Lieutenant de la Jemmeraie and young Jean Ba'tiste de la Vérendrye set out with thirty men from Kaministiquia, portaged through dense forests over moss and dank rock past the high cataract of the falls, and launched westward to prepare a fort for the reception of their leader in spring. Before winter had closed navigation, Fort St.
When the explorer ordered his men once more in line to launch for the Western Sea, there was outright mutiny. Soldiers and boatmen refused to go on. The Jesuit Messaiger threatened and expostulated with the men. Jemmeraie, who had been among the Sioux, interceded with the voyageurs. A compromise was effected.
By a lucky coincidence, the same winter that M. de la Vérendrye had come down to Quebec, there had arrived from the Mississippi fort, his nephew, Christopher Dufrost, Sieur de la Jemmeraie, who had commanded the Sioux post and been prisoner among the Indians. So M. de la Vérendrye chose Jemmeraie for lieutenant.
A last sign of the cross, and the lithe figures leap light as a mountain cat to their place in the canoes. There are four benches of paddlers, two abreast, with bowman and steersman, to each canoe. One can guess that the explorer and his sons and his nephew, Sieur de la Jemmeraie, who was to be second in command, all unhatted as they heard the long last farewell of the bells.
With Jemmeraie went the Jesuit Messaiger; but their combined explanations failed to satisfy the merchants of Montreal. De la Vérendrye had now been away three years. True, he had constructed two fur posts and sent East two cargoes of furs. His partners were looking for enormous wealth.
Behind, at slower pace, came the provisions. De la Vérendrye reached the Lake of the Woods in September. Fearing the delay of the goods for trade, and dreading the danger of famine with so many men in one place, De la Vérendrye despatched Jemmeraie to winter with part of the forces at Lake Winnipeg, where Jean and Pierre, the second son, had built Fort Maurepas. The worst fears were realized.
To turn back meant ruin. To go forward he was powerless. Leaving Jemmeraie in command, and permitting his eager son to go ahead with a few picked men to Fort Maurepas on Lake Winnipeg, De la Vérendrye took a small canoe and descended with all swiftness to Quebec.
While he waited came blow upon blow: Jean and Pierre arrived from Fort Maurepas with news that Jemmeraie had died three weeks before on his way down to aid De la Vérendrye. Wrapped in a hunter's robe, his body was buried in the sand-bank of a little Northern stream, La Fourche des Roseaux. Over the lonely grave the two brothers had erected a cross. Father and sons took stock of supplies.
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