to winter on Lake Superior.  A rumor of Iroquois on the war-path compelled Radisson and Groseillers to move their camp back from Lake Superior higher up the chain of lakes and rivers between what is now Minnesota and Canada, toward the country of the Sioux.  In the fall of 1659 Groseillers’ health began to fail from the hardships; so he remained in camp for the winter, attending to the trade, while Radisson carried on the explorations alone.

This was one of the coldest winters known in Canada.[16] The snow fell so heavily in the thick pine woods of Minnesota that Radisson says the forest became as sombre as a cellar.  The colder the weather the better the fur, and, presenting gifts to insure safe conduct, Radisson set out with a band of one hundred and fifty Cree hunters for the Northwest.  They travelled on snow-shoes, hunting moose on the way and sleeping at night round a camp-fire under the stars.  League after league, with no sound through the deathly white forest but the soft crunch-crunch of the snowshoes, they travelled two hundred miles toward what is now Manitoba.  When they had set out, the snow was like a cushion.  Now it began to melt in the spring sun, and clogged the snow-shoes till it was almost impossible to travel.  In the morning the surface was glazed ice, and they could march without snow-shoes.  Spring thaw called a halt to their exploration.  The Crees encamped for three weeks to build boats.  As soon as the ice cleared, the band launched back down-stream for the appointed rendezvous on Green Bay.  All that Radisson learned on this trip was that the Bay of the North lay much farther from Lake Superior than the old Nipissing chief had told Dreuillettes and Groseillers.[17]

Groseillers had all in readiness to depart for Quebec; and five hundred Indians from the Upper Country had come together to go down the Ottawa and St. Lawrence with the explorers.  As they were about to embark, coureurs came in from the woods with news that more than a thousand Iroquois were on the war-path, boasting that they would exterminate the French.[18] Somewhere along the Ottawa a small band of Hurons had been massacred.  The Indians with Groseillers and Radisson were terrified.  A council of the elders was called.

“Brothers, why are ye so foolish as to put yourselves in the hands of those that wait for you?” demanded an old chief, addressing the two white men.  “The Iroquois will destroy you and carry you away captive.  Will you have your brethren, that love you, slain?  Who will baptize our children?” (Radisson and Groseillers had baptized more than two hundred children.[19]) “Stay till next year!  Then you may freely go!  Our mothers will send their children to be taught in the way of the Lord!”

Fear is like fire.  It must be taken in the beginning, or it spreads.  The explorers retired, decided on a course of action, and requested the Indians to meet them in council a second time.  Eight hundred warriors assembled, seating themselves in a circle.  Radisson and Groseillers took their station in the centre.[20]