Jean Nicolet was born in or near Cherbourg, and was the son of a mail carrier. He was about twenty years of age when, in 1618, he arrived in Quebec; "and forasmuch as," says an old Jesuit writer of that time, "his nature and excellent memory inspired good hopes of him, he was sent to winter with the Island Algonkins, in order to learn their language. He tarried with them two years, alone of the French, and always joined the Barbarians in their excursions and journeys, undergoing such fatigues as none but eyewitnesses can conceive; he often passed seven or eight days without food, and once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than a little bark from the trees." These "Island Algonkins" lived on Allumettes Island in the Ottawa River, nearly three hundred miles from Quebec; their language was the principal one then used by the Indians in the country on the north bank of the St. Lawrence and in the great valley of the Ottawa. Although the life was so hard that few white men could endure it, Nicolet, like most of the other interpreters, learned to enjoy it; and, passing from one tribe to another, in his search for new languages and experiences, he remained among his forest friends for eight or nine years. He had been with the Algonkins for three or four years when he went, at the head of four hundred of them, into the Iroquois country, and made a treaty of peace with this savage foe, whom the Algonkins always greatly feared. It is related that thence he went to dwell with the Nipissing Indians, living about Lake Nipissing, "where he passed for one of that nation, taking part in the very frequent councils of those tribes, having his own separate cabin and household, and fishing and trading for himself." Possibly Nicolet might have been recalled from the woods before this, but, between 1629 and 1632, Canada was in the hands of the British; and he remained among the Indians, inspiring them to hostility against the strangers. In 1632, when the country was released to France, Champlain and his fellow-officers returned to Quebec, and Nicolet was summoned thither, and was employed as clerk and interpreter by the Hundred Associates. Champlain was eager to resume his explorations. He had once been up the great Ottawa River, and thence had crossed over to Lake Huron, and had become keenly interested in what were then termed the "upper waters." Of Lakes Ontario and Erie he knew nothing, for the dreaded Iroquois had prevented the French from going that way; and Lakes Superior and Michigan were, as yet, undiscovered by whites. Vague rumors of these unknown regions had been brought to Quebec by bands of strange savages who had found their way down to the French settlements in search of European goods in exchange for furs.