Explorations of Verendrje and His Sons 279 



built at the mouth of Rainy lake ; l^^ort St. Charles on the west 

 side of the Lake of the Woods near its "Northwest Angle," 

 and other forts -or trading posts on lake Winnipeg and the 

 Assiniboine and Saskatchewan rivers. Verendrye had more 

 zeal for crossing the continent and reaching the Pacific than 

 for the wealth to be gained by the fur trade. His expeditions 

 did not financially meet expenses, and rivals sought to displace 

 him from the patronage of the governor and the king; but 

 shortly before his death, in 1749, wdien he had expected soon 

 to set out again on new expeditions, the king honored him by 

 the cross of St. Louis. The name of the St. Louis river, the 

 largest tributary of lake Superior, probably came from this 

 honor conferred on Verendrye. He was the founder of the 

 fur trade in the northern part of ]\Iinnesota, in Manitoba, and 

 the Saskatchewan region, where it greatly flourished during, 

 the next hundred years; and two of his sons were the first 

 white men to see the Rocky mountains, or at least some east- 

 ern range of our great Cordilleran moimtain belt. 



The chief original sources of our knowledge of the ex- 

 plorations by Verendrye and his sons are the early French 

 Colonial documents, of which a large number relating to their 

 numerous exploring expeditions have been collected and pub- 

 lished by Pierre Margry in the sixth volume of his ''Discover- 

 ies and vSettlements of the French in the West and in the 

 South parts of North America, 1614-1754, Memoirs and Orig- 

 inal Documents." In his last volume of the series, printed in 

 French at Paris in 1886, pages 583-632 narrate the Verendrye 

 explorations. The document which most interests us, as con- 

 taining the narration of the journey in 1742-43 by two of 

 Verendrye's sons to the Rocky mountains, is in pages 598-611, 

 and is entitled "J^^^^"^^ of an Expedition made by the Cheva- 

 lier de la Verendrye with one of his Brothers, for discovery 

 of a passage to the Pacific Ocean ; addressed to the Marquis 

 de Beauharnois." 



A very satisfactory manuscript discussion of the route of 

 this expedition crossing the Plains from the Missouri river to 

 the Rocky mountains, with platting of the courses as narrated, 

 has been supplied to the Minnesota Historical Society from a 

 corresponding member. Captain Edward L. Berthoud, of Gol- 

 den, Colorado. This manuscript was received through the 

 kindness of another member, ^Nfr. Olin D. Wheeler, of St. 



