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400 been the first man who brought to Quebec a description of Lake Superior, as well as a specimen of its copper. On Champlain's Map of 1632, appears Lake Superior, and in the accompanying description Sault du Gaston is described as neariy two leagues broad, and discharging into Mer Douce (Lake Huron).

On the 4th of July, 1634, another person, Jean Nicolet, in the service of the fur company known as the "Hundred Associates," of whom Champlain was the agent, left Three Rivers, on his way to the upper lakes, and during the next autumn and winter became acquainted with the Ojibways at Sault du Gaston, and the Ochunkgraw or Winnebagoes of Green Bay.

In 1641, the Hurons, then living on the east side of the lake which bears their name, gave a great feast, at which several tribes were present, and there the Jesuit missionaries saw for the first time the Ojibways.

Year after year, the adventurous fur traders became better acquainted with the tribes of the Upper Lakes. Father Le Mercier, in a letter dated at Quebec, the 21st day of September, 1654, alludes to a flotilla of canoes guided by traders, loaded with furs belonging to friendly Indians, who came from the west, a distance of four hundred leagues. In the same relation, it is mentioned, that if a person could be found, who would send thirty Frenchmen into that country, not only would they gain many souls to God, but they would receive a profit that would surpass the expenses they would incur for the support of the Frenchmen that might be sent, because the finest peltries came, in the greatest abundance, from those quarters.