| Summary: | And Early Explorations 547 EXPEDITIONS Verendrye The first white men to visit North Dakota were the French chevalier, Sieur Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Verendrye, of Trois Riviers, Quebec, Canada, and party, who set out on the St. Lawrence River from Mount Royal, now the site of the city of Montreal, on June 8, 1731, to explore the country for New France and find the way to the fabled "Great Western Sea." The chevalier was accompanied by his three sons, Jean Baptiste, aged 18, Pierre Francois, aged 17, and Louis Joseph, aged 16, and his nephew, Christopher Dufrost Sieur de la Jemmeraie, who had been to the Lake Pepin post on the Mississippi, and was held captive by the Indians for a time, and some fifty men, including soldiers, couriers and voyaguers and a Catholic priest. The noted priest, Charlevoix, had been consulted concerning the plans and venture of the party and advised the chevalier to go direct to the Sioux country. They paddled on and on until they reached the Nipigon post in the Lake Superior country. Here they heard many stories from the Indians of the Western Sea and of a vast flat and treeless country lying toward the setting sun. Ochagach, an old Indian chief, drew a map on birch bark for the chevalier, showing the supposed route and a great river flowing toward the fabled country as told in Indian tradition. This only served to kindle his imagination more and gave him new inspiration to hurry on. When the party reached the mouth of the Pigeon River, or, as we now know it, the boundary river between the Arrowhead section of Northeastern Minnesota and the Canadian province of Ontario, they left Lake Superior and journeyed on via Rainy River and Lake of the Woods to Lake Winnipeg, establishing several trading posts en route. The eldest son, the nephew and the priest were murdered by the Indians before reaching Lake Winnipeg, but undaunted, the Chevalier pushed on. Early in the spring of 1738, they discovered the Red River of the North, at its mouth, and named it the Rouge River, owing to the rouge or reddish color of the water. They paddled up the river to the mouth of the Assim- boine, where the city of Winnipeg now stands, and established Fort Rouge. Here they met the Assiniboine Indians and heard Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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