In this way the winter passed. The leader was, we may be sure, restless at the delay and impatient to advance farther. The spring brought good news. Late in May La Jemeraye returned from Rainy Lake, bringing canoes laden with valuable furs, the result of the winter's traffic. These were immediately sent on to Michilimackinac, for shipment to the partners at Montreal. La Jemeraye reported that he had built a fort at the foot of a series of rapids, where Rainy Lake discharges into the river of the same name. He had built the fort in a meadow, among groves of oak. The lake teemed with fish, and the woods which lined its shores were alive with game, large and small. The picture was one to make La Vérendrye even more eager to advance. On June 8 he set out with his entire party for Fort St Pierre, as the new establishment had been named, to commemorate his own name of Pierre. It took a month to traverse the intricate chain of small lakes and streams, with their many portages, connecting Lake Superior and Rainy Lake. {30} After a short rest at Fort St Pierre, La Vérendrye pushed on rapidly, escorted in state by fifty canoes of Indians, to the Lake of the Woods. Here he built a second post, Fort St Charles, on a peninsula running out far into the lake on the south-west side--an admirable situation, both for trading purposes and for defence. This fort he describes as consisting of 'an enclosure made with four rows of posts, from twelve to fifteen feet in height, in the form of an oblong square, within which are a few rough cabins constructed of logs and clay, and covered with bark.' In the spring of 1735 Father Messager returned to Montreal, and with him went La Jemeraye, to report the progress already made. He described to the governor the difficulties they had encountered, and urged that the king should be persuaded to assume the expense of further exploration towards the Western Sea. The governor could, however, do nothing. Meanwhile Jean, La Vérendrye's eldest son, had advanced still farther and had made his way to Lake Winnipeg. He took with him a handful of toughened veterans, and tramped on snow-shoes through the frozen forest--four hundred and fifty miles in the stern midwinter {31} of a region bitterly cold. Near the mouth of the Winnipeg river, where it empties into Lake Winnipeg, they found an ideal site for the fort which they intended to build. Immediately they set to work, felled trees, drove stout stakes into the frozen ground for a stockade, put up a rough shelter inside, and had everything ready for La Vérendrye's arrival in the spring. They named the post Fort Maurepas, in honour of a prominent minister of the king in France at the time.