The period from 1610 to 1615 marks the beginning of the French presence in Ontario.<\/p>\n
\u00c9tienne Br\u00fbl\u00e9, scout and interpreter for Samuel de Champlain, \u00a0is thought to be the first Caucasian to have reached the area that is present-day Ontario. In the summer of 1610, he set out to explore the Pays d\u2019en Haut (\u201cupper country\u201d), a region of New France that encompassed the majority of Ontario and beyond. He travelled up the Ottawa River, reaching Lake Nipissing by the Mattawa River, and ending his journey in Huronia, going as far as Georgian \u00a0Bay via the French River. Along with his First Nations allies, the Hurons, he set off to explore several regions surrounding the<\/p>\n
Great Lakes, and would later report his discoveries of this countryside, rich in natural resources and expansive freshwater seas, to Champlain.<\/p>\n
In May 1613, Champlain went in search of a \u201cnorthern sea\u201d (Hudson Bay). Accompanied by Br\u00fbl\u00e9 and three other young scouts, he travelled up the Ottawa River as far as Allumette Island, Quebec, in the vicinity of Pembroke, Ontario. He took advantage of this journey to build alliances with an Algonquin tribe, the Kichesipirini, and then returned to Quebec City. It was during this journey that Champlain lost his astrolabe, which would be found 254 years later, in 1867, by Edward Lee, a 14-year-old farm boy.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until 1615 that Champlain would follow Br\u00fbl\u00e9 as far as Huronia. Br\u00fbl\u00e9 also took him to explore northern Lake Ontario, as far as the Bay of Quinte. He took the same route, the great trade route, to reach the heart of the Huron country on the banks of Georgian Bay. It was during this journey to the Bay of Quinte that he was wounded by an arrow to the knee during a battle with the Iroquois, and was forced to winter with his Huron-Wendat allies until spring 1616 before returning to Quebec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"