On February 22, 1752 [he says], about nine o'clock in the morning, I was at this post with five Frenchmen. I had sent the rest of my people, consisting of fourteen persons, to look for provisions, of which I had been in need for several days. I was sitting quietly in my room, when two hundred Assiniboines entered the fort, all of them armed. These Indians scattered immediately all through the place; several of them even entered my room, but unarmed; others remained in adjacent parts of the fort. My people came to warn me of the behaviour of these Indians. I ran to them and told them sharply that they were very impudent to come in a crowd to my house, and armed. One of them answered in the Cree language that they came to smoke. I told them that they were not behaving properly, and that they must leave the fort at once. I believe that the firmness with which I spoke somewhat frightened them, especially as I put four of the most resolute out of the door, without their saying a word.
I went at once to my room. At that very moment, however, a soldier came to tell me that the guard-house was full of Indians, who had taken possession of the arms. I ran to the guard-house and demanded, through a Cree interpreter, what they meant by such behaviour. During all this time I was preparing to fight them with my weak force. My interpreter, who proved a traitor, said that these Indians had no bad intentions. Yet, a moment before, an Assiniboine orator, who had been constantly making fine speeches to me, had told the interpreter that, in spite of him, the Indians would kill and rob me.
When I had barely made out their intentions I failed to realize that I ought to have taken their arms from them. [To frighten them] I seized hold of a blazing brand, broke in the door of the powder magazine, and knocked down a barrel of gunpowder. Over this I held the brand, and I told the Indians in an assured tone [through the interpreter] that I expected nothing at their hands, and that even if I was killed I should have the glory of subjecting them to the same fate. No sooner had the Indians seen the lighted brand, and the barrel of gunpowder with its head staved in, and heard my interpreter, than they all fled out of the gate of the fort. They damaged the gate considerably in their hurried flight. I soon laid down my brand, and then I had nothing more exciting to do than to close the gate of the fort.
Soon after this incident with the Assiniboines, Saint-Pierre gave up his half-hearted attempt to find a route to the Western Sea, and returned to Montreal. He had proved himself a brave man enough. He did not, however, understand, and made no attempt to understand, the character of the Indians, and, as an explorer, he was a complete failure. In a couple of years he managed to undo all the work which La Vérendrye had accomplished. After he abandoned the West, the forts which had been built there with such difficulty and at such great expense soon fell into decay. The only men who had the knowledge and the enthusiasm to make real La Vérendrye's dream of exploration, his own sons, were denied the privilege of doing so; and no one else seemed anxious even to attempt such a difficult task.
The period of French rule in Canada was now rapidly drawing to a close. Instead of adding to the territories of France in North America, her sons were preparing to make their last stand in defence of what they already possessed. Half a dozen years later their dream of western exploration, and of a great North American empire reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, came to an end on the Plains of Abraham. It was left for those of another race who came after them to turn the dream of their rivals into tangible achievements. It must never be forgotten, however, that, although Pierre de La Vérendrye failed to complete the great object of his ambition, we owe to him and his gallant sons the discovery of a large part of what is to-day Western Canada.
An English translation of The Journals of La Vérendrye edited by Lawrence J. Burpee, with the French text, will be found among the publications of the Champlain Society. The reader should consult also Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict, chapter xvi.; Burpee, The Search for the Western Sea; Shortt and Doughty (editors), Canada and Its Provinces, vol. i., 'The Pathfinders of the Great West.'
Abnakis, 4.
Assiniboines, 49, 50-63, 90, 109.
Aulneau, Father, 37-40.
Beauharnois, Marquis de, 16, 31, 33
Bow Indians, 78-87.
Caughnawagas, 4.
Coureurs de bois, 10-12.
Cree Indians, 39, 46, 47, 49, 93.
Fort Bourbon, 92.
Fort Dauphin, 92.
Fort La Jonquière, 108.
Fort La Reine, 49, 68, 91, 107.
Fort Rouge, 49.
Fort St Charles, 30, 37, 47, 107.
Fort St Pierre, 30.
Horse Indians, 78.
Kaministikwia river, 15, 31, 37.
La Galissonière, Marquis de, 95, 96, 99, 100.
La Jemeraye, 19, 28, 29, 30; dies, 37.
La Jonquière, Marquis de, 100, 101.
La Vérendrye, François, 19, 65, 67, 74, 81; reaches Rocky Mountains, 84; 87, 92, 96, 97-106.
La Vérendrye, Jean-Baptiste, 19, 30, 36, 37; is killed by the Sioux, 40.
La Vérendrye, Pierre, son of the elder Pierre, 19, 47, 74, 87.
La Vérendrye, Pierre Gaultier de, birth and childhood, 1-3; enters army, 3; expedition against Deerfield, 4-7; raid on St John's, 7; serves in War of Spanish Succession, and is made lieutenant, 8; returns to Canada and enters fur trade, 9; determines to find the Western Sea, 14; marries Mlle Dandonneau, 14; commands trading-post on Fort Nipigon, 15; granted monopoly of Western fur trade as a means of financing his Western expedition, 17-19; his first journey of exploration, 20-32; returns to Montreal, 33-5; starts again for the West, 36; refuses to revenge himself on the Sioux for the murder of his son, 46; with the Assiniboines, 49-54; with the Mandans, 55-68; falls ill, 69; returns to Assiniboines, 70; at Fort La Reine, 71, 72, 74, 92; returns to Montreal, 94; given the rank of captain and decorated, 95; dies, 96; 112.
Louvière, builds Fort Rouge, 49.
Mackenzie, Alexander, 109.
Mandans, tribe of Indians, 44-67, 72, 73, 89.
Niverville, 107-8.
Noyelle, M. de, 94.
Ochagach, his story of the Western Sea, 15-16, 19.
Parkman, Francis, his description of Bow Indians, 81-3.
People of the Little Cherry, 87-89.
Rainy Lake, fort built at, 29.
Rocky Mountains, explorers reach, 85, 93, 108, 109.
Rouville, Hertel de, guerilla leader, 4.
Saint-Pierre, Legardeur de, 96, 102-3, 104, 106-7, 109-11.
Sioux Indians, 39-43, 46, 90, 91.
Subercase, leader of raid on St John's, 8.
Three Rivers, 1-2.
Western Sea, 12-19, 21, 73, 93, 95, 109.
Winnipeg, Lake, fort built at, 30-1.
1. THE DAWN OF CANADIAN HISTORY
By Stephen Leacock.
2. THE MARINER OF ST MALO
By Stephen Leacock.
3. THE FOUNDER OF NEW FRANCE
By Charles W. Colby.
4. THE JESUIT MISSIONS
By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.
5. THE SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA
By William Bennett Munro.
6. THE GREAT INTENDANT
By Thomas Chapais.
7. THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR
By Charles W. Colby.
8. THE GREAT FORTRESS
By William Wood.
9. THE ACADIAN EXILES
By Arthur G. Doughty.
10. THE PASSING OF NEW FRANCE
By William Wood.
11. THE WINNING OF CANADA
By William Wood.
12. THE FATHER OF BRITISH CANADA
By William Wood.
13. THE UNITED EMPIRE LOYALISTS
By W. Stewart Wallace.
14. THE WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES
By William Wood.
15. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS
By Thomas Guthrie Marquis.
16. THE WAR CHIEF OF THE SIX NATIONS
By Louis Aubrey Wood.
17. TECUMSEH: THE LAST GREAT LEADER OF HIS PEOPLE
By Ethel T. Raymond.
18. THE 'ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND' ON HUDSON BAY
By Agnes C. Laut.
19. PATHFINDERS OF THE GREAT PLAINS
By Lawrence J. Burpee.
20. ADVENTURERS OF THE FAR NORTH
By Stephen Leacock.
21. THE RED RIVER COLONY
By Louis Aubrey Wood.
22. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC COAST
By Agnes C. Laut.
23. THE CARIBOO TRAIL
By Agnes C. Laut.
24. THE FAMILY COMPACT
By W. Stewart Wallace.
25. THE 'PATRIOTES' OF '37
By Alfred D. DeCelles.
26. THE TRIBUNE OF NOVA SCOTIA
By William Lawson Grant.
27. THE WINNING OF POPULAR GOVERNMENT
By Archibald MacMechan.
28. THE FATHERS OF CONFEDERATION
By A. H. U. Colquhoun.
29. THE DAY OF SIR JOHN MACDONALD
By Sir Joseph Pope.
30. THE DAY OF SIR WILFRID LAURIER
By Oscar D. Skelton.
31. ALL AFLOAT
By William Wood.
32. THE RAILWAY BUILDERS
By Oscar D. Skelton.