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At Sault St Louis, as the Grand Sault was now called, Champlain had a joyful meeting with Pont-Gravé, recently arrived at Quebec from France, and with the Récollet fathers who had remained at the settlement. Proceeding to Quebec, he observed with satisfaction the results of his agricultural experiments. His wheat had prospered, as well as Indian corn and a variety of vegetables; grafts and trees brought from France were thriving.

Meanwhile, what had become of Brûlé? As far as it lay within his power, he had succeeded in his mission. In the Seneca country his band had surprised a small company of the enemy, killed four and carried two as prisoners to Carantouan, chief town of the Carantouanais on the upper Susquehanna. Welcomed with feasting and dances, Brûlé waited impatiently for the termination of the festivities. At length he set out with five hundred warriors to join Champlain. When, however, the hostile town was reached he found the siege raised and the besiegers gone. The promised aid had arrived two days too late.

After wintering at Carantouan, Brûlé descended the Susquehanna as far as Chesapeake Bay, the first of Europeans to do so, although the bay itself had been discovered by Captain John Smith some years before. His hosts supplied him with guides to return to the Huron country. Captured and tortured by the Senecas, he was released through what he believed a miraculous interposition of Providence. An Agnus Dei, which he wore next his skin, had been taken from him, notwithstanding his warning that it was a great medicine and would surely destroy them. Just then a terrific thunderstorm burst suddenly over the terrified savages. Believing him endowed with supernatural powers, they unbound him and made amends by entertaining him with feasting and dancing. They became his fast friends, and actually escorted him four days on his way to the Hurons. We next hear of Brûlé at the St Louis Rapids in 1618, when Champlain took down from his own lips the story of his adventures, and urged him to return to the Hurons and continue his discoveries.

His achievements, important as they were, may be summarized in a few words. He was the pioneer explorer of the Province of Ontario, including Georgian Bay, the countries of the Hurons and Neutrals, and Lake Ontario, as well as the first to explore Northern New York and the Susquehanna River. He was the first white man to gaze on the rapids at Sault Ste Marie and to visit the coppermines of Lake Superior. Among the discoverers and explorers of the upper St Lawrence basin he ranks first in time and one of the first in performance, as he was also the first of those Frenchmen who settled among the native tribes as resident interpreters and fur traders. Parkman had good warrant for describing him as ‘that pioneer of pioneers, Étienne Brûlé, the interpreter.’ His end was tragical enough. After piloting the English to Quebec in 1629, and serving them during their occupation of Canada, he returned to the Huron country, and was clubbed to death and eaten by the Hurons at Toanché in 1632.

The Récollet mission to the Hurons had been a spasmodic affair, but full of historical interest. Champlain’s party, as has been already stated, overtook Father Joseph le Caron’s at Carhagouha somewhere south of Thunder Bay, on August 12, 1615. It was a typical Huron village, with a triple palisade thirty-five feet in height. Here was celebrated the first mass held in what is now the Province of Ontario. All united in singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and this was followed by a salute from their guns. The scene was one calculated to impress the imagination: the palisaded village in the midst of cornfields, framed in by hills and primeval forest; the devout Récollet elevating the Host; the kneeling worshippers; the bronzed face and stalwart figure of Champlain; the lithe, youthful form of Brûlé the interpreter; the little force of soldiers which represented the might and majesty of imperial France. Round these, in picturesque garb of deer-skin and beaver, with plumed head-dresses hanging low on their backs, squatted hundreds of painted Hurons, gazing through the smoke of their long pipes in silence and stolid wonderment.

It was on this occasion that Champlain erected a cross, with the royal arms attached, in token that the country of the Hurons was now added to the dominions of King Louis XIII.

Father Joseph le Caron accompanied Champlain to Quebec, and the mission existed only in name for the next six years. Father Poullain wintered among the Nipissings in 1622. The Huron mission was revived in 1623; Le Caron was accompanied by Father Nicolas Viel, a lay brother named Gabriel Sagard, and two donnés, or lay members, to serve as acolytes and domestics. With them Champlain had sent eleven other Frenchmen, ostensibly as an escort and ‘to support and defend the Hurons,’ but doubtless to act as fur traders as well. On arrival, they found five or six of their fellow-countrymen still living with the savages, and occupying Le Caron’s old cabin. This, the first dwelling erected by Europeans in Ontario, was a hut built in Indian fashion, twenty-five feet by twelve or fifteen, and partitioned into three rooms. Into the outer apartment, which was at once kitchen, dormitory and reception-room, the savages were admitted when they came to visit. This opened into a central room, which served as pantry, storehouse and refectory. The innermost room of all served as a chapel, which none but Frenchmen were allowed to enter. Le Caron and Sagard merely wintered in the mission. Father Nicolas Viel, while returning to Montreal in 1625, met his fate in the Rivière des Prairies. The Hurons in his canoe threw him overboard, and he was drowned in a part of the river which to this day is called Sault-au-Récollet, in memory of his tragic end. Father de la Roche d’Aillon, who arrived in 1625 and remained until 1628, visited South-Western Ontario. He was the first to describe from personal observation the Neutrals and their country. Two Jesuits, Brébeuf and de Nouë, arrived in 1626 among the Hurons. Both returned to Quebec in 1629 before the surrender of the colony to English invaders.

Canada was held by the English until 1632, when it was restored to the French. This year was signalized also by the publication of two important works: The Great Journey to the Country of the Hurons by Brother Gabriel Sagard, and the complete edition of Champlain’s Travels in Western New France called Canada, including discoveries from 1603 until 1629, with his large map summing up these discoveries.

Georgian Bay is shown on Champlain’s map as emptying into Lake Ontario by a short river with two slight expansions. The Falls of Niagara are at the entrance into the lake. The rapids of St Mary’s River are shown. Manitoulin Island was apparently unknown. Although the east end of Lake Superior is outlined, the island with the copper-mine is shown in a smaller lake to the north, which discharges below the Sault into the main stream of the St Lawrence. Flowing northerly into Lake Superior is a ‘Great River coming from the South.’ The Neutrals are shown south of the lakes—a manifest mistake. Dotted lines indicate trails; one leads from Lake Ontario to Oneida Lake, another to the Andastes by a long route starting midway on the river connecting Georgian Bay with Lake Ontario. The map shows clearly Champlain’s own explorations, and indicates his understanding of Brûlé’s discoveries.