| Henry Kelsey | |
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 Henry Kelsey sees the buffalo on the western plains illustrated by Charles William Jefferys |
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| Born | November 17, 1685 Trois-Rivières, Quebec |
| Died | December 5, 1749 (aged 64) Montreal, Quebec |
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (November 17, 1685 – December 5, 1749) was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer.
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Early life
Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, he was the youngest son of René Gaultier de Varennes and Marie Boucher, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, the first Governor of Trois-Rivières. The Gaultier were part of the Ancien Régime whose family of aristocrats came from the Anjou area of France.[1]
Pierre was educated at a Jesuit seminary in Quebec, but from the age of 14 received a cadet’s commission in the colonial regulars. In 1704 and 1705 he took part in the armed struggle known as Queen Anne's War in the United States.
At 22 years of age, he enlisted in the French Army, fought in Flanders during the War of the Spanish Succession and was seriously wounded. After recovering from his injuries and being released as a prisoner of war, he returned to Canada and married in 1712. He farmed and fur traded to support his family until 1727 when he moved to Nipigon to command that fort.[1]
Explorations
In 1728 he was appointed commandant of the French posts, including Fort Kaministiquia, (present day Thunder Bay, Ontario in Canada), on the north shore of Lake Superior. It was during this time as commandant that La Vérendrye came to know a Cree guide, Auchagah, who produced a map of canoe routes between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg based on his own experience as well as that of several other Crees.[2] La Vérendrye became convinced of the existence in the middle latitudes of the American continent of a gulf-like western sea (mer du couchant) which opened on the Pacific.
In 1731 he began his explorations in earnest. One of the main objectives was to find a route to the Western Sea. Between 1731 and 1737 he built several trading posts between Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg, assisted by his four sons and a nephew, including Fort St. Pierre at the west end of Rainy Lake in 1731, Fort St. Charles near Angle Inlet on Lake of the Woods in 1732, Fort La Foret on the Winnipeg River in 1733, and Fort Maurepas on the Winnipeg River near present day Selkirk, Manitoba in 1734.[3] These forts were an important base of operations until at least 1760 because of the fur trade and their location between Montreal and points farther west. These were the first European establishments west of Lake Superior since Jacques de Noyon wintered over at Rainy Lake in 1688.
In 1738 he travelled with Assiniboine guides southwest to the area of the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota, USA. There he was introduced to the Mantannes (Mandans), a Siouxan agricultural people living in permanent villages along the Missouri. In conjunction with that trip he established two forts, Fort Rouge and Fort La Reine, in what is now Manitoba in Canada. Two of his sons explored the area southwest of the Mantannes, reaching the Big Horn Mountains, the Black Hills and returning via the Missouri and what is now Pierre, South Dakota. It may have been on this trip that he found the alleged Vérendrye Runestone.
The forts built to the north and west by people under his command created a large area in the west for French traders. In addition to Fort Rouge and Fort La Reine, on the site of present-day Portage-la-Prairie, established in 1738, other forts in the fur trade emanating from New France into this region were Fort Dauphin, (Winnipegosis, Manitoba), Fort Bourbon, to the northwest of Lake Winnipeg, and Fort Paskoya, to the northwest of Cedar Lake.
He resigned as commander of the Western Posts in 1744 after being unable to convince his superiors that further exploration of rivers like the Saskatchewan would lead them to rivers flowing west into the Western Sea. In 1746 he again became the western commander. In this capacity, he returned to the east in 1747. While planning further exploration of the Saskatchewan River and points west, he died at Montreal, Quebec on December 5, 1749. Shortly before his death, La Vérendrye was awarded the Order of Saint Louis by King Louis XV of France.[4]
Legacy
La Vérendrye Provincial Park in Ontario and La Vérendrye Wildlife Reserve in Quebec are named after him, as well as Verendrye Electric Cooperative in North Dakota, the neighbourhood of Varennes in the St. Vital district of Winnipeg, and rue La Vérendrye and Parc La Vérendrye in the Saint Boniface district in Winnipeg.
References
- ^ a b "Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye, Pierre". Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=1366. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
- ^ "Maps and Nations Exhibit". The Newberry Library. 1999. http://www.newberry.org/smith/exhibits/mapsnations/exhibit1999.html. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
- ^
"Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de Lavérendrye". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Pierre_Gaultier_de_Varennes,_Sieur_de_Lav%C3%A9rendrye. - ^ "The La Vérendryes: Family of Explorers". Library and Archives Canada. http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/lac-bac/explorers/www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/explorers/h24-1530-e.html. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
See also
- French colonization of the Americas
- History of North Dakota
- Christopher Dufrost de La Jemeraye (nephew, b. 1708)
- Sons of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye:
- Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye (b. 1713)
- Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye (b. 1714)
- François de La Vérendrye (b. 1715)
- Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye (b. 1717)
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