Jean Nicolet

Jean Nicolet travels through the Great Lakes region in 1634, reaching the western end of Lake Huron and discovering the Sault Ste. Marie (which, though Nicolet doesn’t travel through it, leads to Lake Superior), and the Straits of Mackinaw.

Born in Cherbourg, Normandy, France, the son of Thomas Nicollet who was "messenger ordinary of the King between Paris and Cherbourg", and Marguerite de la Mer, had come to Quebec in 1618 as a clerk and to train as an interpreter for the Compagnie des Marchands, a trading monopoly owned by members of the French aristocracy.

As an employee, Jean Nicolet had been a devotee of the Roman Catholic Church and a faithful supporter of the Ancien Régime.

On his arrival in Quebec, in order that he learn their language, he had been sent to live with the Algonquins on Allumette Island, a friendly native settlement on the important fur trade route on the Ottawa River.

From a relationship with a Nipissing native, a woman named Elisabeth Manitoukoue une Sauvagesse de Nipissing (translation of the French "an native woman from Nipissing"), he had a daughter, Madeleine Euphrosine Nicolet, whom he later brought back with him to the colony.

When Quebec on July 19, 1629, fell to the Kirke brothers, who took control for England, Jean Nicolet had fled back into the safety of the Huron country and worked against English interests until the French were restored to power.

Traversing the straits, into ...

...the Green Bay area of Lake Michigan’s western shore, he meets the Siouan-speaking Winnebago, earlier described by the Hurons as the ‘flat-faced tribe beyond the great sweet waters.’ He concludes that these people must be from or near the Pacific Ocean and would provide a direct contact with China.

Nicolet becomes the ambassador to the Winnebago people, and wears brightly colored robes and carries two pistols, to show that he is in power; the Winnebago people respect him for this.

With some Winnebago guides, Nicolet ascends the Fox River, portages to the Wisconsin, and travels down it until it begins to widen.

So sure is he that he is near the sea, he stops and goes back to Quebec to report his discovery of a passage to the "South Sea," unaware that he has just missed finding the upper Mississippi.

Nicolet returns to Quebec in 1635, but is then directed to go to the Lake Nipissing area where he is to spend more than eight years among the Nipissing, running a store and trading with the various indigenous people in the area.