glass with
ice and moss. The forests of this region are full of dank heavy
windfall that obstructs the streams and causes an endless succession of
swamps. In these the paddlers had to wade to mid-waist, 'tracking' their
canoes through perilous passage-way, where the rip of an upturned branch
might tear the birch from the bottom of the canoe. When the swamps
finally narrowed to swift rivers, blankets were hoisted as sails, and
the brigade of canoes swept out to the sandy sea of Hudson Bay. 'We were
in danger to perish a thousand times from the ice,' Radisson writes,
'but at last we came full sail from a deep bay to the seaside, where we
found an old house all demolished and battered with bullets. The Crees
told us about Europeans. We went from isle to isle all that summer in
the Bay of the North. We passed the summer coasting the seaside.'

Had Radisson found Hudson Bay? Some historians dispute his claims; but
even if his assertion that he sailed 'from isle to isle' during the
summer of 1662 be challenged, the fact that his companion, Groseilliers,
knew enough of the Bay to enable him six years later to guide a ship
round by sea to 'a rendezvous' on the Rupert river must be accepted.

The only immediate results of the discovery to Radisson and Groseilliers
were condign punishment, disgrace, and almost utter ruin. When they came
back to the St Lawrence in the summer of 1663 with several hundred
Indians and a flotilla of canoes swarming over the surface of the river
below the heights of Quebec, and conveying a great cargo of beaver
skins, the avaricious old governor affected furious rage because the two
traders had broken the law by going to the woods without his permission.
The explorers were heavily fined, and a large quantity of their beaver
was seized to satisfy the revenue tax. Of the immense cargo brought
down, Radisson and Groseilliers were permitted to keep only a small
remainder.

Groseilliers sailed for France to appeal to the home authorities for
redress, but the friends of the governor at the French court proved too
strong for him and nothing was done. He then tried to interest merchants
of Rochelle in an expedition to Hudson Bay by sea, and from one of them
he obtained a vague promise of a ship for the following year. It was
agreed that in the following spring Radisson and Groseilliers should
join this ship at Isle Perce at the mouth of the St Lawrence. So it
happened that, in the spring of 1664, the two ex