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ESQUIF is one of our main sponsors. Take a look at the Champlain, the canoe that we will be using thanks to this Québec company. Light and very quick, this is an ideal canoe for the expedition.
Nature enthusiasts and avid river canoeists, Myriam Lessard and her father, Denis Lessard, have paddled up and down rivers for several years. During a Rouge et Or football game at Laval University in October 2004, Myriam suggested to Denis the idea of paddling down the Mississippi in a canoe. The pair immediately set out to research the project and evaluate its feasibility.
One month later, the itinerary was finalized. “We will follow the path of Louis Jolliet and Father Marquette”, 333 years later.On November 2, 1672, Frontenac wrote: “Mr. Talon has decided that it would be expedient for the service to send Sieur Jolliet on a mission to discover the Southern Sea by way of the country of the Mashoutins, and to go to the great river that they call Mississippi and that is thought to empty into the Sea of California.”
In 1672, Louis Jolliet left Québec and reached Sault-Sainte-Marie where he spent the winter. The following spring, he joined Father Marquette at the Saint-Ignace Mission. On May 17, 1673, hoping to find a passage to the China Sea, Jolliet and Marquette set off in a seven-man two-canoe expedition that will end at the Arkansas-Louisiana border.
