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Lawrence River as far as the Falls of Lachine; Champlain, his Recollet friars and Jesuit priests and heralds of the woods added the upper lakes; and Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, Tonty, Hennepin, Radisson, Groseilliers, Iberville, Bienville, Le Sueur, La Harpe, the Verendrye father and sons and scores of other Frenchmen, many of forgotten names, added the valley of the river of a hundred thousand streams, from where at the east the French creek begins, a few miles from Lake Erie, to flow toward the Ohio even to the sources of the Missouri in the snows of the Rockies "the most magnificent dwelling-place" again to recall De Tocqueville, "prepared by God for man's abode; the valley destined to give the world a field for a new experiment in democracy and to become the heart of America."
I turned over in my mind what could have possibly given occasion for this, when the great chief & captain of the savages came to tell me that some young men of the band, irritated by the recollection of that which the English had said to them, that my brother, des Groseilliers, was dead, that I was a prisoner, & that they were come to make all the other Frenchmen perish, as well as some reports of cannon that they had fired with ball in the wood the day that I was arrived, had thus thrown away this tobacco which had come from the English by mistake, not wishing to smoke any of it.
In the execution of their bold design to journey to the North Sea, Radisson and Groseilliers had to meet the opposition of the Jesuits and the governor the two most powerful influences in New France. The Jesuits were themselves preparing for an expedition overland to Hudson Bay and had invited Radisson to join their company going by way of the Saguenay; but he declined, and they left without him.
During the winter of 1681-82 La Chesnaye persuaded some of his friends to advance money for provisions and ships to go to the North Sea. Among these friends were Jean Chouart, Groseilliers' son, and a Dame Sorrel, who, like the English Lady Drax, was prepared to give solid support to a venture that promised profit.
Groseilliers and Radisson, the first white men in Minnesota, 1655-6 and 1659-60, and their discovery of the Upper Mississippi River, in Minn. Then came the Hooded Faces, the friars and the priests.
'He proposed to me, Radisson says, 'to undertake to establish the beaver trade in the great Bay where I had been some years before on account of the English. It may be supposed that naval discipline ill-suited these wild wood-wanderers, and after this it is not surprising that we find Radisson and Groseilliers again in New France at a conference of fur traders and explorers, among whom were La Salle, Jolliet, Charles Le Moyne, the soldier with the famous sons, and La Chesnaye.
The words of the order in part are: 'To put an end to the differences between the two Nations touching the settlements made by Messrs Groseilliers and Radisson on Hudson's Bay, the said Groseilliers and Radisson shall return and withdraw the French with all effects belonging to them and shall restore to the English Company the Habitation by them settled to be enjoyed by the English without molestation.
These, besides the scores of institutions of private foundation, but compelled to the same public spirit as the State universities, tell with what thought of to-morrow the geographical descendants of France are doing their tasks of to-day, where Allouez and Marquette, Hennepin and Du Lhut, Radisson and Groseilliers, and the Sieur de la Salle wandered and suffered and died but yesterday,
In the year 1660 two French pathfinders and fur traders, Medard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit Radisson, men of Three Rivers, came back from the region west of Lake Superior telling wondrous tales of a tribe of Indians they had met a Cree nation that passed each summer on the salt waters of the Sea of the North.
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