The North Channel was part of the route used by the French colonial voyageurs and coureurs des bois to reach Lake Superior. The first known European to settle on the island was Father Joseph Poncet, a French Jesuit, who set up a mission near Wiikwemkoong in 1648. The Jesuits called the island ""Isle de Ste-Marie"." The endemic Eurasian infectious diseases carried by the visitors had a devastating effect on the island's population, as most Natives had no natural immunity to the new diseases. They suffered so many deaths in the ensuing epidemics of smallpox, measles and other diseases, that their societies were disrupted.