What was Louis Joliet known for?

The first significant Canadian-born explorer, Louis Jolliet achieved international fame in his lifetime as the first non-Aboriginal person, together with Jacques Marquette, to travel and map the Mississippi River.

What did Louis Jolliet do as a kid?

As a child, Louis Joliet studied to become a priest. He was also a skilled musician. As an adult, though, he became a fur trader and explorer. He thought that perhaps the Mississippi River led to Asia.

How did Louis Jolliet?

Overland to Hudson Bay Jolliet and seven companions left Quebec on the thirteenth of April. They travelled by way of the Saguenay as far as Lac Saint Jean (Lake St. John) and thence by Lake Mistassini and the Rupert River until they reached Rupert Bay (James Bay.)

When did Louis Joliet explore?

Marquette and Joliet Exploring the Mississippi On May 17, 1673, Father Jacques Marquette and fur trader Louis Joliet set out on a four-month voyage that carried them thousands of miles through the heart of North America to explore the path of the Mississippi River.

What did Joliet and Marquette discover?

Exploration of the Upper Mississippi While Hernando de Soto was the first European to make official note of the Mississippi River by discovering its southern entrance in 1541, Jolliet and Marquette were the first to locate its upper reaches, and travel most of its length, about 130 years later.

Why did Marquette and Joliet turn back?

Following the river to the mouth of the Arkansas River — within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico — Marquette and Joliet learned that it flowed through hostile Spanish domains. Fearing an encounter with Spanish colonists and explorers, they decided to return homeward by way of the Illinois River in mid-July.

Who sponsored Marquette and Joliet?

French officials commissioned Louis Joliet and Father Marquette to explore the region and to claim that vast stretch of land for the French Crown. Count de Frontenac, vice-regent to Louis XIV, saw this expedition as the first step in creating a French empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Why did Marquette and Joliet explore?

In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, undertook an expedition to explore the unsettled territory in North America from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico for the colonial power of France.