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Updated: May 14, 2025
Young Vérendrye lay face down, his back hacked to pieces, a spear sunk in his waist, the headless body mockingly decorated with porcupine quills. So died one of the bravest of the young nobility in New France. The Sautaux erected a cairn of stones over the bodies of the dead. All that was known of the massacre was vague Indian gossip.
By that Radisson knew they were weak. Somewhere along the Long Sault Rapids, the scouts saw sixteen Iroquois canoes. The Indians would have thrown down their goods and fled, but Radisson instantly got his forces in hand and held them with a grip of steel. Distributing loaded muskets to the bravest warriors, he pursued the Iroquois with a picked company of Hurons, Algonquins, Sautaux, and Sioux.
At Green Bay he hears of the Sautaux in war with Crees. His description of buffalo hunts among the Sioux tallies exactly with the Pembina hunts of a later day. Oldmixon says that it was from Crees and Assiniboines visiting at Green Bay that Radisson learned of a way overland to the great game country of Hudson Bay.
In June the Indian hunters came in with the winter's hunt; and on the 20th thirty Sautaux hurried to Fort St. Charles, to report that they had found the mangled bodies of the massacred Frenchmen on an island seven leagues from the fort. Again La Vérendrye had to choose whether to abandon his cherished dreams, or follow them at the risk of ruin and death.
At the Sault they found the Crees and Sautaux in bitter war. They also heard of a French establishment, and going to visit it found that the Jesuits had established a mission. Radisson had explored the Southwest. He now decided to essay the Northwest. When the Sautaux were at war with the Crees, he met the Crees and heard of the great salt sea in the north.
Cleaving the mist behind, following solely by the double foam wreaths rippling from the canoe prows, came the silent boats of the Sioux. When sunrise lifted the fog, the pursuers paused like stealthy cats. At sunrise Jean de la Vérendrye landed his crews for breakfast. Camp-fires told the Indians where to follow. A few days later bands of Sautaux came to the camping ground of the French.
The desire for firearms has tempted Indians to murder many a trader; so Radisson and Groseillers cached all the supplies that they did not need in a hole across the river. News of the two white men alone in the northern forest spread like wild-fire to the different Sautaux and Ojibway encampments; and Radisson invented another protection in addition to the bells.
Before the end of November the explorers rounded the western end of Lake Superior and proceeded northwest. Radisson records that they came to great winter encampments of the Crees; and the Crees did not venture east for fear of Sautaux and Iroquois. He mentions a river of Sturgeons, where was a great store of fish.
Surely this was the Sea of the North Hudson Bay of which the Nipissing chief had told Groseillers long ago. Then the Crees had great store of beaver pelts; and trade must not be forgotten. No sooner had peace been arranged between Sautaux and Crees, than Cree hunters flocked out of the northern forests to winter on Lake Superior.
I have purposely refrained from entering into the heated controversy as to the identity of these two men. It is apart from the subject, as there is no proof these men went beyond the Green Bay region. These routes were; By the Saguenay, by Three Rivers and the St. Maurice, by Lake Nipissing, by Lake Huron, through the land of the Sautaux, by Lake Superior overland, by the Ottawa.
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