For that reason I have put the corroborative evidence in
footnotes, rather than cumber the movement of the main theme. I am
sorry to have loaded the opening parts with so many notes; but
Radisson's voyages change the relative positions of the other explorers
so radically that proofs must be given. The footnotes are for the
student and may be omitted by the general reader. The study of
Radisson arose from, using his later exploits on Hudson Bay as the
subject of the novel, _Heralds of Empire_. On the publication of that
book, several letters came from the Western states asking how far I
thought Radisson had gone beyond Lake Superior before he went to Hudson
Bay. Having in mind--I am sorry to say--mainly the early records of
Radisson's enemies, I at first answered that I thought it very
difficult to identify the discoverer's itinerary beyond the Great
Lakes. So many letters continued to come on the subject that I began
to investigate contemporaneous documents. The path followed by the
explorer west of the Great Lakes--as given by Radisson himself--is here
written. Full corroboration of all that Radisson relates is to be
found--as already stated--in chronicles written at the period of his
life and in the State Papers. Copies of these I have in my possession.
Samples of the papers bearing on Radisson's times, copied from the
Marine Archives, will be found in the Appendix. One must either accept
the explorer's word as conclusive,--even when he relates his own
trickery,--or in rejecting his journal also reject as fictions the
_Jesuit Relations_, the _Marine Archives_, _Dollier de Casson_, _Marie
de l'Incarnation_, and the _Abbe Belmont_, which record the same events
as Radisson.
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