Kaministiquia. There the French had long maintained a
trading-post from which they made adventurous journeys northward
and westward.

The rugged regions still farther north had already been explored,
at least in outline. There lay the great inland sea known as
Hudson Bay. French and English had long disputed for its mastery.
By 1670 the English had found trade to Hudson Bay so promising
that they then created the Hudson's Bay Company, which remains
one of the great trading corporations of the world. With the
English on Hudson Bay, New France was between English on the
north and English on the south and did not like it. On Hudson Bay
the English showed the same characteristics which they had shown
in New England. They were not stirred by vivid imaginings of what
might be found westward beyond the low-lying coast of the great
inland sea. They came for trade, planted themselves at the mouths
of the chief rivers, unpacked their goods, and waited for the
natives to come to barter with them. For many years the natives
came, since they must have the knives, hatchets, and firearms of
Europe. To share this profitable trade the French, now going
overland to the north from Quebec, now sailing into Hudson Bay by
the Straits, attacked the English; and on those dreary waters,
long before the Great West was known, there had been many a naval
battle, many a hand-to-hand fight for forts and their rich prize
of furs.

The chief French hero in this struggle was that son of Charles Le
Moyne of Montreal, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who ended his
days in the task of founding the French colony of Louisiana. He
was perhaps the most notable of all the adventurous leaders whom