Samuel de Champlain
In 1604, Samuel de Champlain, was the first of the European explorers to navigate Lake St. Louis (Lake Ontario). He was the first to write about Niagara Falls.
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain
In 1604, Samuel de Champlain, was the first of the European explorers to navigate Lake St. Louis (Lake Ontario). He was the first to write about Niagara Falls.
Samuel de Champlain wrote:
“…That there was a fall about a league wide and a large mass of water falls into said lake: that when this fall is passed one sees no more land on either side but only a sea so large that they have never seen the end of it, nor heard that anyone has…”
Although Champlain had never seen Niagara Falls himself, he wrote reports about the Falls based upon those made to him by Indians.
In 1632, Samuel de Champlain became the first to draw and publish a map of Niagara. In this map a very clear and marked outline of the river is given.
Rene Brehan de Galinée
“…This outlet contains, at a distance of ten or twelve leagues, from its mouth in Lake Ontario, one of the finest cataracts or water-falls in the world: for all the Indians to whom I have spoken about it said the river fell in that place from a rock higher than the tallest pine trees, that is, about two hundred feet. In fact, we heard it from where we were. But this fall gives such impulse to the water that, although we were ten or twelve leagues away, the water is so rapid that one can with great difficulty row up against it…”
“…With a roar that is heard not only from the place where we were ten to twelve leagues distant but actually the other side of Lake Ontario, opposite this mouth from which M. Trouvé told me he heard it…”
Father Louis Hennepin
“…four leagues from Lake Frontenac there is an incredible Cataract of water-fall which has no equal …”
“….Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie`, there is a vast an