Who were the La Vérendrye family?
Answer
A Canadian-born family of explorers led by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye (1685 to 1749) who, with his sons, opened the Canadian prairies to French trade and exploration between 1731 and 1749.
Explanation
The La Vérendrye family was a Canadian-born family of explorers led by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye (November 17, 1685 to December 5, 1749) who, with his four sons (Jean-Baptiste, Pierre, François, and Louis-Joseph) and nephew Christophe Dufrost de La Jemerais, opened the Canadian prairies to French trade and exploration between 1731 and 1749. Born at Trois-Rivières, La Vérendrye is regarded as the European discoverer of the Canadian Northwest.
La Vérendrye received a royal commission in 1731 to search for the rumoured 'Western Sea' (Pacific Ocean) while developing a fur-trade network beyond Lake Superior. Beginning in summer 1731, La Vérendrye and his sons established a chain of trading posts that eventually extended from the Lake of the Woods to the Saskatchewan River. Major posts included Fort Saint-Pierre (Lake of the Woods, 1731), Fort Saint-Charles (Lake of the Woods, 1732), Fort Maurepas (mouth of the Winnipeg River, 1734), Fort Rouge (the site of present-day Winnipeg, 1738), Fort La Reine (Portage la Prairie, 1738), Fort Dauphin (Lake Manitobah, 1741), Fort Bourbon (north end of Cedar Lake, 1741), and Fort Paskoyac (The Pas, 1748).
La Vérendrye's sons made the deepest penetrations into the prairies. Pierre Junior and François La Vérendrye travelled south in 1738 to 1739 to the Mandan villages on the upper Missouri River (in present-day North Dakota), the first French-Canadians to cross what is now the international boundary into the Great Plains. Louis-Joseph and François La Vérendrye made an expedition in 1742 to 1743 that may have reached the Black Hills and possibly sighted the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. The 1913 discovery of a lead plate near Fort Pierre, South Dakota dated 1743 is a tangible trace of their journey.
The La Vérendrye expeditions were costly. Jean-Baptiste La Vérendrye and 19 men were killed by Lakota at the Lake of the Woods on June 8, 1736 (the Massacre of Massacre Island). Pierre La Vérendrye senior died in Montreal in 1749 without reaching the Pacific or earning back his investment. The family's prairie trading network was inherited by other French traders and laid the geographic foundation for the later Canadian and British North West Company expansion. La Vérendrye's name is preserved in the Quebec wildlife reserve, Manitoba's La Vérendrye Trail, and Saskatchewan's La Vérendrye Provincial Park.
Why this matters for your test
The La Vérendrye family opened the Canadian prairies to European exploration and trade. Recognising their 1731 to 1749 expansion and the Mandan villages expedition of 1738 to 1739 gives candidates two specific anchors.
Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography; Manitoba Historical Society
