Succeeding years
were spent in further explorations, which carried him across Lake
Ontario, and in plans for the conversion of the Indians, to which the
aid of the Jesuits was summoned. Missions were established, and the
intrepid priests pushed their way farther and farther into the
wilderness. To this work, Champlain gave more and more of his thought in
the last years of his life, which ended on Christmas day, 1635.
Among the young men whom Champlain set to work among the Indians was
Jean Nicolet. The year before his death, Champlain sent him on an
exploring expedition to the west, in the course of which he visited Lake
Michigan and perhaps Lake Superior. Following in his footsteps, the
Jesuits gradually established missions as far west as the Wisconsin
River, and, finally, in 1670, at Sault Ste. Marie, the French formally
took possession of the whole Northwest.
It was at about this time there appeared upon the scene another of those
picturesque and formidable figures, in which this period of American
history so abounds--Robert Cavalier La Salle. La Salle was at that time
only twenty years of age. He had reached Canada four years earlier and
had devoted himself for three years to the study of the Indian
languages, in order to fit himself for the career of western exploration
which he contemplated.
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