tallies with his other descriptions of the Ottawa. It is certain that
they must have been on the Ottawa before they came to the Lake of the
Castors or Nipissing. The noise of the waterfall seems to point to the
Chaudière Falls of the Ottawa. If so, the landing place would be the
tongue of land running out from Hull, opposite the city of Ottawa, and
the _portage_ would be the Aylmer Road beyond the rapids above the
falls. Mr. Benjamin Sulte, the scholarly historian, thinks they went
by way of the Ottawa, not Lake Ontario, as the St. Lawrence route was
not used till 1702.

[7] _Jesuit Relations_, 1660.

[8] _Jesuit Relations_, 1660, and _Radisson's Journal_. These "people
of the fire," or Mascoutins, were in three regions, (1) Wisconsin, (2)
Nebraska, (3) on the Missouri. See Appendix E.

[9] Benjamin Sulte unequivocally states that the river was the
Mississippi. Of writers contemporaneous with Radisson, the Jesuits,
Marie de l'Incarnation, and Charlevoix corroborate Radisson's account.
In the face of this, what are we to think of modern writers with a
reputation to lose, who brush Radisson's exploits aside as a possible
fabrication? The only conclusion is that they have not read his
_Journal_.

[10] I refer to Radisson alone, because for half the time in 1659
Groseillers was ill at the lake, and we cannot be sure that he
accompanied Radisson in all the journeys south and west, though
Radisson generously always includes him as "we." Besides, Groseillers
seems to have attended to the trading, Radisson to the exploring.