when trade and enterprise were paralysed by those raids of the Iroquois, which culminated in the dispersion of the Hurons. For years the Ottawa valley was almost deserted, and very few traders or _coureurs de bois_ ventured into the country around the western lakes. An enterprising trader of Three Rivers, Medard Chouart, Sieur de Grosseilliers, is believed to have reached the shores of Lake Superior in 1658, and also to have visited La Pointe, now Ashland, at its western extremity, in the summer of 1659, in company with Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur Radisson, whose sister he had married. Some critical historians do not altogether discredit the assumption that these two venturesome traders ascended the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and even reached the Mississippi, twelve years before Jolliet and Marquette. With the peace that followed the destruction of the Mohawk villages by Tracy and Courcelles, and the influx of a considerable population into Canada, the conditions became more favourable for exploration and the fur trade. The tame and steady life of the farm had little charm for many restless spirits, {171} who had fought for France in the Carignan Regiment. Not a few of them followed the roving Canadian youth into the forest, where they had learned to love the free life of the Indians. The priest, the _gentilhomme_, and the _coureur de bois_, each in his way, became explorers of the western wilderness. From the moment the French landed on the shores of Canada, they seemed to enter into the spirit of forest life. Men of noble birth and courtly associations adapted themselves immediately to the customs of the Indians, and found that charm in the forest and river which seemed wanting in the tamer life of the towns and settlements. The English colonisers of New England were never able to win the affections of the Indian tribes, and adapt themselves so readily to the habits of forest life as the French Canadian adventurer.