In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la Vérendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Vérendrye and his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of the Asiliboiles, as La Vérendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Vérendrye had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west. Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a village of Assiniboines on the way, La Vérendrye arrived on the banks of the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time with the Mandans, La Vérendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La Vérendrye’s later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest, but lies outside the present subject.