EARLY PIONEERS 11 



records in the annals of restless adventure that 

 exceed in heroism and self-sacrifice those of 

 Champlain and Cartier, Br^boeuf and Lallemant, types 

 of the great army of explorers who faced the rapids 

 of the St. Lawrence. Their names are indelibly 

 engraved in its geography, their tongue is spoken 

 in the cities reared on the river's banks, and their 

 spirit animates their distinguished merchants and 

 statesmen. 



Adventurers and explorers had preceded Champ- 

 lain, but they left no mark on history. They either 

 perished in their attempt to penetrate the great 

 unknown, or retreated in the face of dangers which 

 only the bravest could dare. The hidden treasures 

 of a great continent are ever an incentive to adventure 

 and even suffering, but the objective may entail too 

 great a sacrifice. It needs men cast in a different 

 mould, who are not inspired by the wealth of seas, or 

 bright jewels of the mine, but by far nobler projects, 

 to put their hand to the plough and not turn back. 

 Such a soul was Samuel de Champlain. At the 

 dawn of the seventeenth century he joined an expedi- 

 tion to the Far West. De Monts, a French noble- 

 man, commanded the ship in which the explorer 

 sailed. It did not augur well for the success of the 

 enterprise that the company was of the most 

 heterogeneous nature. Men of gentle birth and 

 honourable character were herded together with 

 thieves and vagabonds, the veritable inauvais stt^ets 



