Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, 1604-1618 (Original Narratives of Early American History, Volume 4)

xiii, 377, 4 pp. Volume 4 in series. With maps and two plans. Samuel de Champlain (born 1567', Brouage, France—died December 25, 1635, Quebec, New France [now in Canada]) was a French explorer, acknowledged founder of the city of Quebec (1608), and consolidator of the French colonies in the New World. He was the first known European to sight the lake that bears his name (1609) and made other explorations of what are now northern New York, the Ottawa River, and the eastern Great Lakes. Champlain was probably born a commoner, but, after acquiring a reputation as a navigator (having taken part in an expedition to the West Indies and Central America), he received an honorary if unofficial title at the court of Henry IV. In 1603 he accepted an invitation to visit what he called the River of Canada (St. Lawrence River). He sailed, as an observer in a longboat, upstream from the mother ship’s anchorage at Tadoussac, a summer trading post, to the site of Montreal and its rapids. His report on the expedition was soon published in France, and in 1604 he accompanied a group of ill-fated settlers to Acadia, a region surrounding the Bay of Fundy.