When Champlain on his return from New France to his native village of Brouage told of the vast country which lay beyond the seas, with its thousands of inhabitants who knew nothing of Christianity, the priests of the monastery in that village were so impressed with the magnitude of the work and the necessity for having Christianity presented to these heathen and savages, that four volunteered to accompany him to New France. They reached Quebec in May, 1615. They were Franciscans of the Récollet Order, and were distinguished in dress by the gray robe girt with the white cord. Hence they are often referred to as the priests of the Gray Gown. The most prominent of these was Le Caron, who joined a band of Hurons returning after a successful sale of their winter’s hunting. Their route was up the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron. This was a memorable trip in many ways, but especially because Le Caron was the first white man to see what we now call Lake Huron—indeed the first of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man—or to sail upon its waters. Down among the islands of what is now Georgian Bay they went until they came near where Penetanguishene now stands, and at a large Huron village he awaited the coming of Champlain. On the 12th August Le Caron celebrated mass and held the first religious service in all this territory, which afterwards was known as Upper Canada. Three hundred years afterwards this event was remembered by mass being celebrated as nearly as known on the same spot, and a monument erected. Champlain and he spent most of the winter with the Hurons and made visits to their neighbours, the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians, along the south shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and at the foot of the Blue Hills near where the town of Collingwood now stands. After returning to Quebec to consult with the other members of the Order who had come out to reinforce the small number of missionaries, Le Caron in 1623 returned to his Hurons with Father Viel and Brother Sagard. To the industry of the latter we owe a dictionary of the Huron language. They laboured on with zeal but without making much lasting impression and they realized that the field was too large and the priests were too few. The Récollets had been in New France for about ten years and had founded missions in Acadia in the east, Huronia in the west, Nipissing and Upper St. John. They now realized that the Order was not equipped with the machinery or organization necessary to deal with so great a problem and in their despair they sent a deputation to the Jesuits in France to state the problem and ask their aid.