Foreword

The question will at once occur why no mention is made of Marquette and
Jolliet and La Salle in a work on the pathfinders of the West. The
simple answer is--they were _not_ pathfinders. Contrary to the notions
imbibed at school, and repeated in all histories of the West,
Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle did not discover the vast region
beyond the Great Lakes. Twelve years before these explorers had
thought of visiting the land which the French hunter designated as the
_Pays d'en Haut_, the West had already been discovered by the most
intrepid _voyageurs_ that France produced,--men whose wide-ranging
explorations exceeded the achievements of Cartier and Champlain and La
Salle put together.

It naturally rouses resentment to find that names revered for more than
two centuries as the first explorers of the Great Northwest must give
place to a name almost unknown. It seems impossible that at this late
date history should have to be rewritten. Such is the fact _if we
would have our history true_. Not Marquette, Jolliet, and La Salle
discovered the West, but two poor adventurers, who sacrificed all
earthly possessions to the enthusiasm for discovery, and incurred such
bitter hostility from the governments of France and England that their
names have been hounded to infamy. These were Sieur Pierre Esprit
Radisson and Sieur Médard Chouart Groseillers, fur traders of Three
Rivers, Quebec. [1]

The explanation of the long oblivion obscuring the fame of these two
men is very simple. Radisson and Groseillers defied, first New France,
then Old France, and lastly England. While on friendly terms with the