blackfoot-valley

The earliest Europeans known to have reached Montana were French hunters-fur trapper-traders moving west from the Great Lakes region, known as “Voyageurs”. Very much independent-minded individualists (as they actu- ally had to be), few were lettered and consequently most left little or no writ- ten record of their passage. One early voyageur family who did leave some record was that of Pierre de La Verendrye, who penetrated into the wilderness from the Lake Nipigon- Lake Superior area and reached Lake Winnipeg by 1734. Learning from Indi- ans of a great river to the southwest, he and his sons, Louis-Joseph and Fran- cois, reached the Manda Indian villages on the Missouri near Bismarck, North Early European and American Explorers “ French Fur Trapper meets the Blackfeet” Early 19th century, artist unknown 53