[Illustration: Map of Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, also depicting connecting waterways and a number of smaller lakes in the region.] The Algonquins occupied the greater part of the country from the St. Lawrence to Lake Superior and the Mississippi, and included the Illinois, Wisconsin, Chippewa, Ottawa, and other tribes of the lake region. In the centre of the Algonquin country, in a narrow district extending eastward from Georgian Bay toward Lake Ontario, lived the Huron nation, a strong and prosperous tribe. Between them and the Iroquois there was constant enmity, and for a time after the coming of the whites it was by no means certain which group of Indians would come out victorious. It was while this contest was at its height that Samuel de Champlain came to the St. Lawrence and in 1608 founded Quebec. It was to the Huron settlements he was journeying in the summer of 1615. Champlain was born in southern France and had already won fame as an explorer. He had visited the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America, and had suggested the building of a ship canal at Panama. He had coasted the shores of New England and had been one of the first French colonists at the Bay of Fundy. After the founding of Quebec he had traversed the lake which now bears his name and had journeyed far and wide in the surrounding region. In these expeditions he had allied himself with the Indians of the St. Lawrence and had supported them in their battles with the Iroquois. In the summer of 1615, yielding to the clamors of the Hurons gathered at Montreal for their yearly traffic with the French, Champlain agreed to accompany them on an inroad into the Iroquois country. He departed for Quebec to make needful preparations, but when he returned after a delay of a few days he found that the impatient Indians had set out for their villages, taking with them Father Joseph Le Caron, a Recollect friar who had come out with him from France that spring as a missionary to the Indians. Champlain embarked immediately with ten natives, Brulé, and another Frenchman on the journey to the Huron villages. He approached Lake Huron by the hard northern route, travelling up the Ottawa River, along the portage path to Lake Nipissing, across which he sailed, and down the French River. Indian tribes along the way encouraged the voyagers, telling them that the Lake of the Hurons was at hand. At length they came out from between the banks of the river into the waters of the lake. For more than a hundred miles they coasted southward along its eastern shores, working their way in and out among countless islands, till they reached the lower end of Georgian Bay. There they landed and proceeded by a well-beaten trail into the heart of the Huron country.