In the meantime you must bear in mind that by water more than a thousand miles separated Port Royal from Quebec. Communication was slow and difficult. There was no high-road, and consequently the colonists on the St. Lawrence showed for a long time hardly more interest in Acadia's fortunes than if it were one of France's far-distant West Indian possessions. Louisburg, that mighty fortress which was to awaken their interest and to centre in itself so much of the power and glory of New France, was not yet built. It was not yet even a dream. {103} CHAPTER VIII THE COMING OF FRONTENAC While the wise and prudent Intendant, Talon, was playing his part of official father to the people, Governor Courcelle was busy with his own duties at Quebec. He found that the Iroquois, although they had buried the war-hatchet, had begun to injure Canada's interests in another way by inducing the Northern and Western Indians to trade with the English colonies. Courcelle made up his mind that the proper policy for the French was to secure a stronger hold on the more distant tribes. A fort and military station was built at a spot on the north shore of Lake Ontario where Kingston now stands. Expeditions were despatched to open up communication with the great and unknown territory west and south of the great lakes. Such was the beginning of a great era of discovery, associated in Canadian history with the name of Frontenac, Courcelle's successor, whose name in Canadian history stands second only to Champlain. It was during Courcelle's governorship, in 1669, that Charles the Second of England granted a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, who thereby acquired the right to trade for furs in the mighty region bordering upon {104} Hudson's Bay. But although England thus planted her foot in the far regions of the north, it was to a couple of intrepid French Canadian bushrangers that the idea of the Company was due. The names of these bushrangers were Pierre Esprit Radisson and Chouart de Groseilliers, both emigrants from France. At an early age they had been thrilled by the tales of life and adventure in the distant wilderness across the sea. They were hardy and enterprising, well fitted for the arduous life-work which was before them. From a western tribe of Indians called the Assiniboines, Radisson and Groseilliers first heard of the character and extent of the great inland sea to the north, which had long before been named by the English marine explorers Hudson's Bay. Not only did they glean a description of the inland sea, but they also succeeded, while on their wanderings, in obtaining information how they might reach it, not as the English might do by sea, but overland.