| Summary: | I CHAPTER III. I EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS IN-NORTH DAKOTA AND VICINITY Besides the numerous explorers and exploring expeditions mentioned in the former chapter there are others, prominent in the history of our country that more nearly and directly are connected with the farther northwest and North Dakota in par-ticular. One of the most interesting and import-ant, in a historical sense, of these was that of Ver-endrye. Here we find the first mention of the lands around the upper waters of the Missouri river and the aboriginal inhabitants of these lands. He and his party were the first white people to press the soil of the Dakotas, and theirs the first eyes to behold its beauties. On this account the story of their movements, their various discoveries and personal history is of interest, especially in connection with the history of the vigorous young state to whose annals this volume is devoted. E.XPEDITIOXS OF \-ERE.\DRVE. \'erendrye, whose whole name was Pierre Gaultier \'arennes Sieur de la Verendrye, was the son of Rene Gaultier Varennes, also Sieur de la Verendrye. for twenty-two years the chief magistrate at Trois Rivieres, Canada, and Marie Boucher, his wife, the latter the daughter of his predecessor. The younger Verendrye became a cadet in 1697, and in 1704 took part in a demonstration against New England. The following year he was in Newfoundland and in 1706 went to France, join-ing the regiment du Brittany. He was in the famous battle of Malplaquet, fought in 1709, He returned to Canada and became connected with the Lake Superior region. In 1728, while Ver-endrye was commander at the post on the shores of Lake Nipigon, in the north part of Lake Su-perior, he met, at Mackinaw, one Father De Conor, a Jesuit priest. This man had been with Guignas, who had, the September before, built Fort Beau-harnois, on Lake Pepin. Part of the subject of the conversation of these two men, types of their times and country, was the connection by water between the lakes and the Pacific ocean. It was largely a matter of belief, at that period, that a channel of communication existed in that direc-tion. An Indian by the name of Ochagach, or Otchaga, drew a rough map of the country beyond Lake Superior for Verendrye and which is still preserved among the archives of France. Vari-ous rivers are shown upon this map, the most in-teresting being, however, a mythical one called the Internet Archive
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