CHAPTER IV

1661-1664

RADISSON'S FOURTH VOYAGE

The Success of the Explorers arouses Envy--It becomes known that they
have heard of the Famous Sea of the North--When they ask Permission to
resume their Explorations, the French Governor refuses except on
Condition of receiving Half the Profits--In Defiance, the Explorers
steal off at Midnight--They return with a Fortune and are driven from
New France


Radisson was not yet twenty-six years of age, and his explorations of
the Great Northwest had won him both fame and fortune. As Spain sought
gold in the New Word, so France sought precious furs. Furs were the
only possible means of wealth to the French colony, and for ten years
the fur trade had languished owing to the Iroquois wars. For a year
after the migration of the Hurons to Onondaga, not a single beaver skin
was brought to Montreal. Then began the annual visits of the Indians
from the Upper Country to the forts of the St. Lawrence. Sweeping down
the northern rivers like wild-fowl, in far-spread, desultory flocks,
came the Indians of the _Pays d'en Haut_. Down the Ottawa to Montreal,
down the St. Maurice to Three Rivers, down the Saguenay and round to
Quebec, came the treasure-craft,--light fleets of birch canoes laden to
the water-line with beaver skins. Whence came the wealth that revived
the languishing trade of New France? From a vague, far Eldorado
somewhere round a sea in the North. Hudson had discovered this sea
half a century before Radisson's day; Jean Bourdon, a Frenchman, had