At the hour when Verandrye was seized with his zeal for exploration and discovery, the Company's rivals already possessed numerous posts established by Iberville, Duluth, Frontenac and Denonville, and a host of lesser lights, in the west. Of one of these, on the shores of Lake Nepigon, at the extreme end of Lake Superior, Verandrye had been given the command.
Verandrye sets out to explore the West.
While at this fort, a rumour had reached him of a mighty river flowing into the great ocean. Credulous of the truth of this report, borne to him by the Indians, Verandrye lost little time in communicating it to a friend, Father de Gonor, at Michilimackinac. It was shortly thereafter carried to Governor Beauharnois, who was induced, but not without much pleading, to grant Verandrye fifty men and a missionary for the purposes of exploration. But, although he had thus far succeeded, the only pecuniary aid upon which the explorer could rely was from the fur-trade. He was accordingly given a license to trade, and on the strength of this concession, certain merchants advanced him an outfit. He set out and arrived at Rainy Lake in September, 1731, traversed it, and erected a fort near the site of the present Fort Francis of a later day, to which he gave the name of St. Peter.
A year later he built another fort on the western shore of the Lake of the Woods, and in 1733 paddled down to the mouth of the Winnipeg River to the lake of that name. Crossing Lake Winnipeg, he ascended the Assiniboine River and constructed Fort Rouge.[55]
In 1738 the explorer's three sons, under their sire's instructions, made their way up the Assiniboine and built Fort la Reine, on the site of the present Portage la Prairie.
Well may it be said that the five years from 1733 to 1738 were years of cruel grief and disappointment for Verandrye. He had been struggling on to a realization of his dream in spite of the bitterest discouragements. One of his sons had been slain by the Sioux; he was without funds; fur-trading being with him only a subsidiary employment. His men lacking both courage and faith became unmanageable, and Verandrye addressed the most affecting letters to his monarch in France, who looked upon him and his schemes coldly. Those merchants, who had advanced him money, loaded him with their distrust, perpetually harassed him for returns, and loudly demanded his recall, so that he was forced to stand still and engage in barter when his whole soul cried aloud for him to press on in his path and reach the Pacific.
Verandrye's son reaches the Rockies.
Verandrye divided his little party in the spring of 1742 and ascended the Souris River. Those who came to be familiar with the territory in a later day, when it was frequented by traders, might well appreciate what were the perils these pioneers encountered, and what dangers they escaped when they finally left the country of the peace—leaving Ojibways at Red River, and struck off into the land of the Sioux, a tribe then, from their ferocity to the whites, called the "tigers of the plains." But they were to go still farther. Already the eldest son of the explorer had reached the tribe of the Mandans in the Missouri, but owing to inability to obtain guides his party had been forced to return. He was again despatched by his father, this time in company with the younger son, known as the Chevalier, and two other Frenchmen into the unknown country to the west. This little band of four made a journey of several hundred miles, entering into a league with one of the nations into whose country they penetrated, to lead them to the great Western Ocean. On the first day of January, 1743, they beheld, the first amongst white men, the eastern spurs of the northern Rocky Mountains. But here the Bow Indians, their guides, deserted them, and surrounded by hostile tribes, the party was forced to return. It was in this same year that the elder Verandrye, scarred and gaunt from his long wanderings in the wilderness, presented himself at Quebec to confront his enemies and traducers. They had represented as making an enormous fortune and leading an idle life, he who could point proudly to having taken possession of the country of the Upper Missouri for Lewis XV., and who had built a score and more of forts in the unknown regions of the West.
"If 40,000 livres of debt that I have over my head," said Verandrye bitterly, "are an advantage, then I can compliment myself on being very rich, and I would have been much more so in the end, if I had continued."
His license was given to another who, however, made a poor showing by means of it, and it was not until Beauharnois's successor investigated Verandrye's claims that the explorer received some recognition at court. He was given a captaincy and the Cross of St. Lewis.