Pierre gaultier de la verendrye biography

18th-century French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer

For other people named Gaultier, see Gaultier (disambiguation).

Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (17 November 1685 – 5 December 1749) was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader, and explorer.^[1] In the 1730s, he and his four sons explored the area west of Lake Superior and established trading posts there.

They were part of a process that added Western Canada to the original New France territory that was centred along the Saint Lawrence basin.

He was the first known European to reach present-day North Dakota and the upper Missouri River in the United States.

In the 1740s, two of his sons crossed the prairie as far as present-day Wyoming, United States, and were the first Europeans to see the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico.^[2]

Early life

Born in Trois-Rivières, New France, Pierre was the eldest