By 1669 the Jesuits had three permanent stations in western Canada. The first was the mission station at Sault Ste. Marie, the second was the station of Ste. Esprit, on Lake Superior (not far from the modern town of Ashland), and the third was the station of St. François Xavier at the mouth of the Fox River, on Green Bay, Lake Michigan.
As regards some of the sufferings which these missionaries had to go through when travelling across Canada in the winter, I quote the following from The Relations of the Jesuits (p. 35):—
"I [Father de Crépieul] set out on the 16th of January, 1674, from the vicinity of Lake St. John, near the Saguenay River, with an Algonkin captain and two Frenchmen. We started after Mass, and walked five long leagues on snowshoes with much trouble, because the snow was soft and made our snowshoes very heavy. At the end of five leagues, we found ourselves on a lake four or five leagues long all frozen over, on which the wind caused great quantities of snow to drift, obscuring the air and preventing us from seeing where we are going. After walking another league and a half with great difficulty our strength began to fail. The wind, cold, and snow were so intolerable that they compelled us to retrace our steps a little, to cut some branches of fir which might in default of bark serve to build a cabin. After this we tried to light a fire, but were unable to do so. We were thus reduced to a most pitiful condition. The cold was beginning to seize us to an extraordinary degree, the darkness was great, and the wind blew fearfully. In order to keep ourselves from dying with cold, we resumed our march on the lake in spite of our fatigue, without knowing whither we were going, and all were greatly impeded with the wind and snow. After walking a league and a half we had to succumb in spite of ourselves and stop where we were. The danger we ran of dying from cold caused me to remember the charitable Father de Noue, who in a similar occasion was found dead in the snow, kneeling and with clasped hands.... We therefore remained awake during the rest of the night.... On the following morning two Frenchmen arrived from Father Albanel's cabin very opportunely, and kindled a great fire on the snow.... After this we resumed our journey on the same lake, and at last reached the spot where Father Albanel was.... A serious injury, caused by the fall of a heavy load upon his loins, prevented him from moving, and still more, from performing a missionary's duties."
One of the Jesuit fathers, Allouez, in founding the station of St. François Xavier on Green Bay, Lake Michigan, had gained further information about the wonderful Mississippi, which he called "Messi Sipi". He also thoroughly explored Lake Nipigon, to the north of Lake Superior. In 1669 two missionaries, named Dollier de Casson and Galinée, started from the seminary of St. Sulpice (Montreal) to reach the great tribes of the far west, supposed to be eager to learn of Christianity and known to be much more tractable than the Iroquois. These two missionaries, in their expedition of seven canoes and twenty-one Amerindians, were accompanied by a remarkable young man commonly known as La Salle, but whose real name was Robert Cavalier.[7]
Before leaving Lake Ontario, they actually passed the mouth of the Niagara River and heard the falls, but had not sufficient curiosity to leave their canoes and walk a short distance to see them. The wonderful cascades of Niagara, where the St. Lawrence leaving Lake Erie plunges 328 feet down into Lake Ontario (which is not much above sea level), remained nearly undiscovered and undescribed until the year 1678, when they were visited by Father Hennepin. Near the western end of Lake Ontario the two Sulpician missionaries met another Frenchman, Jolliet, who had come down to Lake Superior by way of the Detroit passage, which is really the portion of the St. Lawrence connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie. Jolliet told the missionary de Casson of a great tribe in the far west, the Pottawatomies, who had asked for missionaries, and who were of Algonkin stock. La Salle, on the other hand, was determined to make for the rumoured Ohio River, which lay somewhere to the south-west of Lake Erie.
The two Sulpicians wintered in "the earthly paradise" to the north of Lake Erie, passing a delightful six months there in the amazing abundance of game and fish. They then met with various disasters to their canoes, and consequently gave up their western journey, passing northwards through Detroit and Lake St. Clair into Lake Huron, and thence to the Jesuit mission station of the Sault Ste. Marie. Here they were received rather coldly, as being rivals in the mission field and in exploration. They in their turn accused the Jesuits of thinking mainly, if not entirely, of the foundation of French colonies, and very little of evangelizing the natives.
JOLLIET, a Canadian by birth,[8] was dispatched by the Viceroy of Canada in 1672 to explore the far west. Two years—1670—previously the French Government had for the first time adopted a really definite policy about Canada, and had taken formal possession of the Lake region and of all the territories lying between the lakes and the Mississippi. A great assembly of Indians was held at Sault Ste. Marie, near the east end of Lake Superior; and here a representative of the French Government, accompanied by numerous missionaries and by Jolliet, read a proclamation of the sovereignty of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre. Below a tall cross was erected a great shield bearing the arms of France. Father Allouez addressed the Indians in the Algonkin language, and told them of the all-powerful Louis XIV, who "had ten thousand commanders and captains, each as great as the Governor of Quebec". He reminded them how the troops of this king had beaten the unconquerable Iroquois, of how he possessed innumerable soldiers and uncountable ships; that at times the ground of France shook with the discharge of cannon, while the blaze of musketry was like the lightning. He pictured the king covered with the blood of his enemies and riding in the middle of his cavalry, and ordering so many of his enemies to be slain that no account could be kept of the number of their scalps, whilst their blood flowed in rivers. The Amerindians being what they were, addicted to warfare, and only recognizing the right of the strongest, it may be that this gospel of force was not quite so shocking and unchristian as it reads to us nearly 250 years afterwards, though it jars very much as coming from the lips of a missionary of Christianity. However, it must be remembered that but for the valour of the French soldiers in the awful period between 1648 and 1666 (when the Mohawks received a thorough and well-deserved thrashing) many of the tribes addressed on this occasion by the Jesuit missionaries would have been completely exterminated; the Iroquois would have depopulated much of north-eastern America. It is obvious, indeed, from our study of the conditions of life amongst the Amerindians, that one reason why the New World was so poorly populated at the time of its discovery by Europeans was the wars of extermination between tribe and tribe; for America between the Arctic regions and Tierra del Fuego is marvellously well supplied with natural food products—game, fish, fruits, nuts, roots, and grain—much more so than any area of similar extent in the Old World.
Jolliet was to be accompanied on his westward expedition by Father JACQUES MARQUETTE,[9] a Jesuit missionary who had become well acquainted with the tribes visiting Lake Superior, and had learnt the Siou dialect of the Illinois people. On May 17, 1673, Jolliet and Marquette started from the Straits of Michili-Makinak with only two bark canoes and five Amerindians. They coasted along the north coast of Lake Michigan, passed into Green Bay, and thence up the River Fox. They were assisted by the Maskutins, or Fire Indians, and were given Miami guides. Thence the natives assisted them to transport their canoes and baggage over the very short distance that separates the upper waters of the Fox River from the Wisconsin River, and down the Wisconsin they glided till they reached the great Mississippi. The Governor of Quebec, who had sent Jolliet on this mission, believed that the Great River of the west would lead them to the Gulf of California, which was then called the Vermilion Sea by the Spaniards, because it resembled in shape and colour the Red Sea.
"On the 17th of June (1673)", writes Father Marquette, "we safely entered the Mississippi with a joy that I cannot express. Its current is slow and gentle, the width very unequal. On its banks there are hardly any woods or mountains. The islands are most beautiful, and they are covered with fine trees. We saw deer and cattle (bison), geese, and swans. From time to time we came upon monstrous fish, one of which struck our canoe with such violence that I thought it was a great tree. On another occasion we saw on the water a monster with the head of a tiger, a sharp nose like that of a wild cat, with whiskers and straight erect ears. The head was grey, and the neck quite black (possibly a lynx).... We found that turkeys had taken the place of game, and the pisikiou, or wild cattle, that of the other animals."
Father Marquette, of course, by his wild cattle means the bison, of which he proceeds to give an excellent description. He adds: "They are very fierce, and not a year passes without their killing some savages. When attacked, they catch a man on their horns if they can, toss him in the air, throw him on the ground, then trample him under foot and kill him. If a person fires at them from a distance with either a bow or a gun, he must immediately after the shot throw himself down and hide in the grass, for if they perceive him who has fired they run at him and attack him."