Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de Laverendrye
Discoverer of the Canadian West, born at Three Rivers, Quebec, 17
November, 1685; died at Montreal, 6 December, 1749. His early
manhood was passed as a soldier in the service of France, and he
was wounded on the battlefield of Malplaquet. Later he returned to
his native country and engaged in the fur trade. As a step towards
the exploration of the Pacific, or the Western Sea as it was then
called, he established three trading posts west of Lake Superior,
i.e. Forts St. Pierre, on Rainy River (1731), St. Charles on the
Lake of the Woods (1732), and Maurepas, at the month of the
Winnipeg River (1734). A sincere Christian, and having at heart
his own religious interests as well as those of his men, he had
taken with him Father Charles M. Mesaiger, a Jesuit, who did not
go farther than the Lake of the Woods, where he was succeeded, in
the summer of 1735, by Father Jean P. Aulneau de La Touche.
This young priest having temporarily left for the east (8 June,
1736) with Laverendrye's eldest son, Jean-Baptiste, and nineteen
"voyageurs", in quest of much needed provisions, the entire party
was slain on an island of the Lake of the Woods on the very day of
their departure. Laverendrye prudently resisted the pressing
solicitations of the natives, burning to avenge on the Sioux, the
authors of the massacre, the wrong done to the French. Then, in
spite of his many debts occasioned by explorations and
establishments for which he had no other funds than the desultory
returns of the fur trade in an unorganized country, he went on
with the task entrusted to his patriotism by the French court. On
24 September, 1738, he reached the exact spot where now stands
Winnipeg, and, ascending the Assiniboine to the present site of
Portage la Prairie, he built there a post which he called Fort La
Reine. Thence he made for the south, and by the end of 1738 he was
at a Mandan village on the Upper Missouri. Early in the spring of
the following year, he sent north one of his sons, who discovered
Lakes Manitoba, Dauphin, Winnipegosis, and Bourbon, and erected a
fort on Lake Dauphin. Meantime Laverendrye had had to repair to
Montreal to come to an understanding with his creditors. On his
return to the west he took with the Jesuit Father Claude
G.Coquart, the first priest to see the confluence of the
Assiniboine with the Red River and reside at what is now Portage
la Prairie (1741). In the spring of 1742 he commissioned two of
his sons, Pierre Gauthier, dit the Chevalier, and Francois, to
explore the country as far west as they could possibly go. In the
company of savages who had never seen a white man, they reached,
after many perils, one of the spurs of the Rocky Mountains, which
they partially scaled (12 January, 1743). The desertion of their
native guides, terrified at the unexpected discovery of a village
of their traditional enemies, alone prevented further progress.
The explorers must have penetrated to a point in the northwest
corner of what is now Montana. Laverendryre was naturally endowed,
it is true, with indomitable energy, but he was struggling against
too heavy odds. Dragged before the law courts by the Montreal
merchants whom he could not pay, and accused by others of thinking
more of filthy lucre than of discoveries, and ill sustained by the
Paris authorities, he had to give up his work (1744), after
consecrating to it the thirteen best years of his life. Gradually
his worth became recognized at Paris, and honours were bestowed
upon him by the French king. He was on the eve of resuming his
explorations when he died, and was buried in the vault of Notre-
Dame, Montreal.
An upright man and a good Christian, Laverendrye was considerably
more than a mere explorer. No less than six fur-trading stations
attested to his efficiency as an organizer. On the other hand, the
numerous personnel of "voyageurs" whom these posts necessitated
eventually gave rise to that wonderful race, the Metis, which was
in after years to play such an important part in the history of
Central Canada.
A.G. MORICE
Translated by Joseph P. Thomas
Dedicated to Mrs. Gladys M. Brown
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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