The things we do!

Along the south shore of Ontario they coast, stopping on the
way to visit the Senecas, La Salle, at least, hoping to find there a guide
to the headwaters of what is now known as the Ohio River. Disappointed, he
with them journeyed on westward past the mouth of the Niagara River,
hearing but the sound of the mighty cataract. At the head of Lake Ontario
they have the astounding fortune to meet Louis Joliet, who with a
companion was returning from Superior (two years before the pageant of St.
Lusson) and who had just discovered that great inland lake between the two
lakes, Ontario and Huron (which had been shown on French maps as connected
by a river only). This lake, Erie, now the busiest perhaps of all that
great chain, had been avoided because of the hostility of the Iroquois,
and so it was that it was last to rise out of the geographic darkness of
that region. Even Joliet's Iroquois guide, although well acquainted with
the easier route, had not dared to go to the Niagara outlet but had
followed the Grand River from its northern shores and then portaged to
Lake Ontario.


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