From such men as these, who were constantly to be seen in the little town of Three Rivers, Pierre de La Vérendrye heard many stories of the wonderful country that lay far towards the setting sun. They told him of mighty rivers and great lakes. Some of these they had seen; others they had heard of from the Indians. Always the young man heard rumours of a great _Mer de l'Ouest_, or Western { 13} Sea, which French explorers had been seeking ardently ever since the days of Jacques Cartier and Samuel Champlain. In the earlier days, when the French first came to Canada, this Western Sea was supposed to be somewhere above Montreal. Probably the Indians who first spoke of it to Jacques Cartier meant nothing more than Lake Ontario. Then, in the days of Champlain, the sea was sought farther westward. Champlain heard rumours of a great water beyond the Ottawa river. He paddled up the Ottawa, reached Lake Nipissing, and, descending what is now known as French River, found the immense body of water of which the Indians had told him. He had discovered Lake Huron, but this, again, was not the Western Sea. Other explorers, following in his footsteps, discovered Lake Michigan and Lake Superior; but still neither of these was the Western Sea. So, in La Vérendrye's day, men were dreaming of a Western Sea somewhere beyond Lake Superior. How far was it westward of Lake Superior? Who could tell? The Indians were always ready with a plausible tale, and many believed that the Western Sea would still be found at no great distance beyond the uppermost of the Great Lakes.
La Vérendrye was a young man of ambition and imagination. The spirit of adventure called him to a great exploit in discovery, as it had called earlier explorers French in blood--Jacques Cartier and Champlain and Radisson, Nicolet and Etienne Brulé, Marquette and La Salle. They one and all had sought diligently for the Western Sea; they had made many notable discoveries, but in this one thing they all had failed. La Vérendrye determined to strive even more earnestly than any of his great predecessors to discover a way to the Western Sea, not so much for his own advantage as for the honour and glory of his native country. This great idea had been taking form in his mind from the days of his early boyhood, when, seated before the great log fire in his father's home in Three Rivers, he had first listened to the stirring tales of the woodrunners.