By 1669 the Jesuits had three permanent stations in western Canada.
The first was the mission station at Sault Ste. Marie, the second was
the station of Ste. Esprit, on Lake Superior (not far from the modern
town of Ashland), and the third was the station of St. Francois Xavier
at the mouth of the Fox River, on Green Bay, Lake Michigan.
As regards some of the sufferings which these missionaries had to go
through when travelling across Canada in the winter, I quote the
following from _The Relations of the Jesuits_ (p. 35):--
"I [Father de Crepieul] set out on the 16th of January, 1674, from the
vicinity of Lake St. John, near the Saguenay River, with an Algonkin
captain and two Frenchmen. We started after Mass, and walked five long
leagues on snowshoes with much trouble, because the snow was soft and
made our snowshoes very heavy. At the end of five leagues, we found
ourselves on a lake four or five leagues long all frozen over, on
which the wind caused great quantities of snow to drift, obscuring the
air and preventing us from seeing where we are going. After walking
another league and a half with great difficulty our strength began to
fail. The wind, cold, and snow were so intolerable that they compelled
us to retrace our steps a little, to cut some branches of fir which
might in default of bark serve to build a cabin.
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