he Neutral nation, that group of Huron-Iroquois
Amerindians who strove to keep aloof from the fierce struggles between
the Algonkins and Hurons on the one hand and the eastern Iroquois
clans on the other. This region, which lies between the Lakes
Ontario, Erie, and Huron, is the most attractive portion of western
Canada. Lying in the southernmost parts of the Dominion, and nearly
surrounded by sheets of open water, it has a far milder climate than
the rest of eastern Canada.

[Footnote 4: The Recollet (properly Recollect) friars were a strict
branch of the Franciscan order that were sometimes called the
Observantines. They were also known as "Recollects" (pronounced in
French _recollet_) because they were required to be constantly keeping
guard over their thoughts. This development of the Franciscan order of
preaching missionary friars was originally a Spanish one, founded
early in the sixteenth century, and becoming well established in the
Spanish Netherlands. Many of them were Flemings or Walloons.]

In 1626 the Jesuit order supplanted the Recollets, and commenced a
campaign both of Christian propaganda and of geographical exploration
which has scarcely finished in the Canada of to-day.

In 1627 the war between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Huron and
Algonkin tribes recommenced, and this, together with the British
capture of Quebec and other portions of Canada, put a stop for several
years to the work of exploration. This was not resumed on an advanced
scale till 1634, when Champlain, unable himself, from failing health,
to carry out his original commission of seeking a direct passage to
China and India across the North-American continent, dispatched a
Norman Frenchman named JEAN NICOLLET to find a way to the Western Sea.
Nicollet, as a very young man, had lived for years amongst the
Amerindian tribes, especially amongst the Nipissings near the lake of
that name. Being charged, amongst other things, with the task of
making peace between the Hurons and the tribes dwelling to the west of
the great lakes, Nicollet discovered Lake Michigan. He was so
convinced of the possibility of arriving at the Pacific Ocean, and
thence making his way to China, that in the luggage which he carried
in his birch-bark canoe was a dress of ceremony made of Chinese damask
silk embroidered richly with birds and flowers. He was on his way to
discover the Winnebago Indians, or "Men of the Sea", of whom Champlain
had heard from the Hurons