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Champlain, on his return to France, again encountered much opposition from court intrigues and conflicting interests. Rival ports, St Malo, Rouen and La Rochelle, wrangled over questions of free trade in furs and their shares in prospective profits. These had to be reconciled before he could set out again. It was in the good ship St Étienne that he sailed from Honfleur on April 24, 1615, Pont-Gravé being in command. On the St Étienne were four Récollet fathers on their way to establish the first regular mission in Canada. On his arrival in New France Champlain once more turned his feet westward. At the Grand Sault he found Hurons and Algonquins, who had come down to trade. They were perturbed over Iroquois war-parties, who beset canoe routes and forest trails, and almost paralysed the traffic in furs. His allies reminded him of the aid he had promised them in his last visit. They offered to furnish two thousand five hundred men, and Champlain agreed to assist with as many Frenchmen as possible. The contingent he actually supplied numbered fourteen, including Brûlé, his interpreter.

This alliance determined for a century and a half the history of Northern America. It involved the French in almost continuous warfare with the Iroquois, with hideous accompaniments of torture, massacre, terror and desolation; but it facilitated French exploration and domination of the St Lawrence and Mississippi basins. Its immediate interest to us, however, is in Champlain’s graphic and trustworthy record of his discoveries and adventures in what is now Central Ontario and Northern New York.

Father le Caron and twelve Frenchmen led the way westward, accompanying the Hurons back to their country. Champlain followed on July 9, 1615, with Brûlé, a servant, and ten Indians, in two canoes loaded to their capacity. Setting out by way of Rivière des Prairies below Montreal, they paddled up the Ottawa to its junction with the Mattawa, ascended the Mattawa to Lake Nipissing, and descended French River to the Lake of the Attignaouantans (a Huron tribe), now Georgian Bay.

At the mouth of French River, Champlain was able to add maize and squashes, as well as berries, to his scanty supply of food. Here also he met three hundred men of the tribe called Cheveux Relevés, or Staring Hairs, better known afterwards as Ottawas, who had come, as the natives do to this day, to dry blueberries for winter use

After threading the countless islands of Georgian Bay, Champlain crossed the mouth of Matchedash Bay, and on August 1 arrived at the Huron village of Otoüacha, somewhere near the present town of Penetanguishene—a beautiful region, cleared and settled, diversified with hills and rivers, in pleasant contrast to the barrenness of the country he had passed through. The Hurons were a sedentary race, cultivating the soil and depending largely upon its products for their subsistence. Their dress was of deer and beaver skins, procured from Algonquins and Nipissings in barter for maize and cornmeal. Indian corn was already far advanced. Squashes and sunflowers were abundant. Villages were numerous, there being more than thirty. All the natives gave him a friendly welcome. At Carhagouha he found Le Caron and the Frenchmen who had accompanied him. The principal town, Cahiagué, probably near the present village of Hawkestone on Lake Simcoe, contained two hundred capacious cabins. Here the army which was to invade the Iroquois country was to gather.

Leaving Cahiagué on September 1, the expedition proceeded three leagues to the Narrows, between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching. Here it was decided to send Brûlé with twelve stalwart savages to the Carantouanais, otherwise known as Andastes or Eries, dwelling on the upper waters of the Susquehanna, to arrange for a junction of their promised force of five hundred men with Champlain’s army. It was a difficult and dangerous journey through hostile tribes. Brûlé and his men, if they took the shortest route, would, after leaving Lake Simcoe, follow the Holland River as far as it was navigable, and then portage across to the Humber. After reaching Lake Ontario, and following its shore line to Niagara, they would avoid the Seneca villages by taking a southerly course to their destination.

Champlain’s route lay along the east shore of Lake Simcoe to Talbot Creek, whence a portage of ten leagues led to Sturgeon Lake. Here the army embarked and paddled down the Trent River with its chain of lakes and streams to the Bay of Quinte, varying the journey by portages round five rapids. The beauty and fertility of the region, and the parklike appearance of the forests, attracted Champlain’s notice.

The expedition crossed Lake Ontario southward at the eastern end, entered the territory of the Iroquois in what is now Northern New York State, and attacked a stronghold of the enemy near Oneida Lake. The attack was unsuccessful; Champlain was wounded, his undisciplined forces showed much valour and little discretion, the Carantouanais failed to appear, and it was necessary to abandon the undertaking. The retreat was effected in excellent order. Champlain’s request for a canoe and men to conduct him down the St Lawrence to Quebec was evaded by his wily allies, who desired to have him present at their council meetings to determine their future action. Near the present city of Kingston they spent some time hunting. With the aid of large enclosures prepared for the purpose, they captured one hundred and twenty deer in five or six weeks. During this time Champlain had a perilous adventure while hunting. Following a strange bird of curious plumage, he was lost in the woods for three days before he discovered the smoke of his hunters’ fires. The Hurons had been greatly alarmed for his safety, and thereafter Darontal, his host, refused to allow him to hunt without an experienced guide.

The homeward journey to the country of the Hurons was full of discomfort and difficulty. Owing to a thaw, the ice was unsafe; yet they were obliged to journey across lakes and streams, and to plunge through great swamps encumbered with fallen trees. By December 23 they were back in Cahiagué.

In January Champlain visited the Tobacco Nation or Petuns, west of the Nottawasaga River. These were a settled race, who cultivated maize as well as tobacco. He was well received and feasted, and won a promise from them and from seven other villages of their neighbours and allies to come in large numbers to trade with the French. Farther west, in the Bruce Peninsula, he found his former acquaintances, the Cheveux Relevés, who also agreed to come to trade.

Two or three days’ journey southward lay the country of the Neutrals, great warriors and tobacco-growers. Champlain desired greatly to visit the Neutrals, but was dissuaded by his hosts. Returning to the Hurons, he went on to the Nipissings, who had promised him aid in his further plans and explorations. He was recalled, however, by a bitter quarrel between the Hurons and Algonquins. An Iroquois prisoner in the hands of the former had been killed by an Algonquin. The Hurons had taken prompt vengeance on the slayer, and in the conflict which followed Iroquet, the Algonquin chief, had been wounded, and Algonquin wigwams plundered. Iroquet had gone so far as to give wampum to the Nipissings to induce them to refuse to accompany Champlain on his proposed journey. Once more the explorer was doomed to disappointment; for the Nipissings traded as far west as the country of the buffalo, forty days distant, and he had hoped with their assistance to make important discoveries.

After a brief sojourn among the Hurons, Champlain, accompanied by Le Caron and Darontal, set out for his little settlement at the foot of the Grand Sault, which he reached in June 1616, bringing with him a mass of valuable information. His recorded observations with regard to the tribes visited have a wide range, including manners and customs, industries, religion and government, hunting, fishing and agriculture.

He had explored the Ottawa-Nipissing canoe route to the Huron country; Lake Simcoe and the Trent River, the eastern portions of Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario; and the counties of Simcoe, Grey and Bruce. He had kept his promise to the Hurons and Algonquins, and confirmed them in their alliance with the French. He had established friendly relations with the Nipissings, Petuns and Ottawas, and secured their trade. He had learned something respecting the Neutrals, the Mascoutens, and remote western and southern tribes. Earlier reports of the immensity of the western territory had been verified by his inquiries. He had failed, it is true, to find the Western Sea, but he had laid the foundations for future discoveries, by making the Hurons’ country the base of operations for missionaries and traders. Here in the school of experience adventurous young Frenchmen were to be trained as guides, interpreters and coureurs de bois, and were to extend his discoveries, and to carry French influence and commerce to remote regions. But his own exploring days were over.