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Explorers of Canada, Part XIV: Father Jacques Marquette

© David Newman

Jacques Marquette was born in Laon, France in 1636. When he was just seventeen he entered the Société de Jésus (Jesuits) and after twelve years in which he studied and taught he was sent over to Canada to convert the Indians. He arrived in Québec in 1666 but immediately left for Trois Rivières where he learned the Huron language. It is thought that he learned up to six different dialects.

Marquette, who is one of the first to begin western exploration, was stationed at a mission in Sault Sainte Marie before he was told to cross the Superior and convert the Illinois Indians. The Illinois told him stories about a large river that streams south so far that no one knew which ocean it emptied into.

Father Marquette took the challenge to find this river and meet the thousands upon thousands of "un-Christian" souls that lived on its banks. Marquette left with an entire Huron tribe and a Illinois man from whom the priest was learning the language and went to find this river.

Just as he was preparing to leave a young explorer named Joliet came to join the expedition. On 17 May 1673 Marquette and Joliet began their adventure of discovery. They canoed south on Lake Michigan and portaged to the Wisconsin which was supposed to be connected to the large stream they were searching.

That report turned out to be true and on 17 June 1673 they hit the waters of the Mississippi. Marquette drew maps of the many countries they passed through, the mouth of the Missouri, the Ohio, and lastly the Arkansas, yet feared to venture farther into Spanish territory and returned north, using a shorter path, the Illinois River, to get back to the Illinois country.

Marquette and Joliet got back to Lake Michigan, around where Chicago stands today, and split ways. Marquette remained with those he intended to convert to Catholicism while Joliet returned to Québec.

Marquette, tired from his labours, left the Illinois to return to his mission at Mackinac but died on his way there at the age of 39, on 19 May 1675.

Marquette's discovery was a great deal for France, which began to establish forts along the Mississippi in this new territory France called Louisiana to add to New France's Canada and Acadia.

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