Lentorama 2023: It Happened on Holy Saturday

Day 22: Adieu, Pierre

The Vérendrye family were involved in the French fur trade in Canada, and were involved in trying to expand the French reach into the Great Plains and the Canadian prairie. In 1732, two brother from the family set out to find the "River of the West," a river believed to flow into the Pacific Ocean.

Or at least we think that's what they were doing. The documentation of the trip is pretty sparse, just one surviving journal and a lead plate dug up in 1913. It's believed they were the first Europeans to cross the Great Plains and see the Rocky Mountains, though there's some speculation that what they actually saw was the Black Hills. There are a number of problems trying to connect the information in the journal to present-day locations, as there are no coordinates (the expidition's astrolabe kept breaking) and names for peoples and landmarks changed over time.

One thing we do know is that the brothers buried the lead plate mentioned earlier in what is today Fort Pierre, South Dakota, which appears to claim the land for France. That being done the brothers left on April 2, 1734, headed for home. Their trip took three months and surviving a Sioux raid. The family did not follow up with further trips, as without a river to the Pacific or a new source of furs there was no future profit to justify more trips.