Note 137 — Chapter XXVIII

According to a recent writer, Pierre d'Esprit Radisson, and Médard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers, of Three Rivers, but both well known at Montreal, whence they drew members of their party, had in their wide wanderings traversed the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, Labrador, the return west of the Mississippi, the great northwest and the overland route to Hudson's Bay, the west, the northwest and the west. In 1659 it is stated Radisson and Groseilliers discovered the upper Mississippi and the lands of the great northwest ten years before Marquette Joliet, twenty years before La Salle, a hundred years before La Vérendrye. Radisson's manuscripts being rescued from oblivion in 1885 are alleged to prove their claims. The course of the first exploration of Radisson seems to have circled over the territory now known as Wisconsin, perhaps eastern Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakotas, Montana and back over North Dakota and Minnesota to the north shore of Lake Superior. This was the southwest. On his return he passed by the scene of Dollard's exploit at the Long Sault. At Quebec they were feted but when afterwards it had leaked out that they had heard of the famous sea of the north and they had asked to continue their explorations, the French governor refused except on condition of receiving half the profits. On this the adventurers with two Indian guides for the upper country, who chanced to be in Montreal and whom they had taken to Three Rivers, stole out thence to the north country and in 1662 discovered Hudson's Bay by the overland route with the aid of friendly Crees. By the spring of 1663 they were back to the Lake of the Woods region, accompanied by 700 Indians of the upper country. Eventually they made their way to Quebec and were received with salvos of canon. Their fortune of pelts was valued in modern money at $30,000, of which the governor claimed for the revenue so much that but $20,000 worth was left. They then turned their allegiance elsewhere. The stories of their various changes of allegiance to and fro, from the French both in the New and Old France to the English, does not concern us. This has blackened their name but does not gainsay their claims to a share in the great discoveries mentioned. At the same time as they never appear to have made a formal claim or took a formal "prise de possession" for France, it is not to be wondered that historians will continue to give the credit to the already accredited discoverers. The five writers who according to the author we are noticing, have attempted to redeem Radisson's memory from ignominy are: Dr. N. G. Dionne, of the Parliament Library of Quebec; Mr. Justice Prud'homme, of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Dr. George Bryce, of Winnipeg; Mr. Benjamin Sulte, of Ottawa, and Judge J. Z. Brower, of St. Paul. (Vide the "Pathfinders of the West," Toronto, 1904, by A. C. Laut.)