e a Canadian
Robin Hood, and had his band of bushrangers like any forest chieftain.
For years he wandered through the forests of the West, and founded
various posts at important points, where the fur trade could be
prosecuted to advantage. Posterity has been more generous to him than
it has been to others equally famous as pioneers, for it has given his
name to a city at the head of Lake Superior. Like many a forest which
they first saw in its primeval vastness, these pioneers have
disappeared into the shadowy domain of an almost forgotten past, and
their memory is only recalled as we pass by some storm-beat cape, or
land-locked bay, or silent river, to which may still cling the names
they gave as they swept along in the days of the old regime.

{177}

XIII.

THE PERIOD OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY:
FRANCE IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

(1672-1687.)

Sault St. Marie was the scene of a memorable episode in the history of
New France during the summer of 1671. Simon Francois Daumont, Sieur
St. Lusson, received a commission from the government of Quebec to
proceed to Lake Superior to search for copper mines, and also to take
formal possession of the basin of the lakes and its tributary rivers.
With him were two men, who became more famous than himself--Nicholas
Perrot and Louis Jolliet, the noted explorers and rangers of the West.
On an elevation overlooking the rapids, around which modern enterprise
has built two ship-canals, St. Lusson erected a cross and post of
cedar, with the arms of France, in the presence of priests in their
black robes, Indians bedecked with tawdry finery, and bushrangers in
motley dress. In the name of the "most high, mighty, and redoubted
monarch, Louis XIV. of that name, most Christian King of France and of
{178} Navarre," he declared France the owner of Sault Ste. Marie, Lakes
Huron and Superior, and Isle of Mackinac, and "all of adjacent
countries, rivers, and lakes, and contiguous streams." As far as
boastful words and, priestly blessings could go, France was mistress of
an empire in the great West.

Three names stand out in bold letters on the records of western
discovery: Jolliet, the enterprising trader, Marquette, the faithful
missionary, and La Salle, the bold explorer. The story of their
adventures takes up many pages in the histories of this fascinating
epoch. Talon may be fairly considered to have laid the foundations of
western exploration, and it was left