[Footnote 2: Correctly written this was Francois Grave, Sieur du
Pont.]
[Footnote 3: The full name was Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts.
Including de Champlain and de Poutrincourt, who will be described
later, we have here the four great heroes who founded French Canada.]
Champlain lost no time in commencing his explorations. Tadoussac was
at the mouth of an important river, called by the French the Saguenay,
a name which they also applied to the mysterious and wonderful country
through which it flowed in the far north; a country rich in copper and
possibly other precious metals. Champlain ascended the Saguenay River
for sixty miles as far as the rapids of Chicoutima. The Amerindians
whom he met here told him of Lake St. John, lying at a short distance
to the west, and that beyond this lake and the many streams which
entered it there lay a region of uplands strewn with other lakes and
pools; and farther away still began the sloping of the land to the
north till the traveller sighted a great arm of the salt sea, and
found himself amongst tribes (probably the Eskimo) who ate raw flesh,
and to the Indians appeared absolute savages.[4] This was probably
the first allusion, recorded by a European, to the existence of
Hudson's Bay, that huge inlet of the sea, which is one of the leading
features in the geography of British North America.
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