hamplain, the sea was sought farther westward. Champlain heard
rumours of a great water beyond the Ottawa river. He paddled up the
Ottawa, reached Lake Nipissing, and, descending what is now known as
French River, found the immense body of water of which the Indians had
told him. He had discovered Lake Huron, but this, again, was not the
Western Sea. Other explorers, following in his footsteps, discovered
Lake Michigan and Lake Superior; but still neither of these was the
Western Sea. So, in La Verendrye's day, men were dreaming of a Western
Sea somewhere beyond Lake Superior. How far was it westward of Lake
Superior? Who could tell? The Indians were always ready with a
plausible tale, and many believed that the Western Sea would still be
found at no great distance beyond the uppermost of the Great Lakes.

{14}

La Verendrye was a young man of ambition and imagination. The spirit
of adventure called him to a great exploit in discovery, as it had
called earlier explorers French in blood--Jacques Cartier and Champlain
and Radisson, Nicolet and Etienne Brule, Marquette and La Salle. They
one and all had sought diligently for the Western Sea; they had made
many notable discoveries, but in this one thing they all had failed.
La Verendrye determined to strive even more earnestly than any of his
great predecessors to discover a way to the Western Sea, not so much
for his own advantage as for the honour and glory of his native
country. This great idea had been taking form in his mind from the
days of his early boyhood, when, seated before the great log fire in
his father's home in Three Rivers, he had first listened to the
stirring tales of the woodrunners.

Years went by, however, before he could attempt to put his plans into
execution. Soon after his return from the French wars, he married the
daughter of a gentleman of New France named Dandonneau and made his
home on the island of Dupas in the St Lawrence, near Three Rivers.
Here four sons were born to him, all of whom were {15} later to
accompany their father on his western explorations. His principal
occupation at this time was to look after the trading-post of La
Gabelle on the St Maurice river, not far from the point where it
discharges its waters into the St Lawrence.

La Verendrye's experience and capacity as a fur-trader, gained at this
post of La Gabelle, led the governor of the colony to offer him, in the
year 1726, the command of an important tradi