Exploration once again received encouragement from the government of New France in the 1720s. The most notable of the explorers in this period were the fur traders Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de La Verendrye, his sons and a nephew, who between 1728 and 1744 traveled far to the west and south on the plains searching out useable waterways, new sources of fur and the elusive Mer de l'Ouest. Born in New France and adapted to the rugged requirements of frontier life as shown in the illustration, these men endured incredible hardships in travels which may have taken them to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Postes du Nord which financed these explorations, were maintained from the Lake of the Woods through the Red River area, and upstream on the Saskatchewan River system. The risks in this trade were great, as the 1736 slaying of an entire trading party, including one of La Verendrye's sons, indicated.
Although the La VÄrendreyes were unsuccessful in their search for the Western Sea, they successfully diverted a notable amount of fur destined for Hudson Bay to posts in the St. Lawrence trading system. They inaugurated a transportation system, using a Lake Superior exchange point at Kaministiquia for western furs and eastern goods, that set the pattern for the western fur trade in the St. Lawrence trading system until 1821.
Courtesy: Provincial Archives of Manitoba (Fur Trade 8)
