Champlain traveled from Honfleur, France & founded Quebec City in 1608.
"The father of New France"
He led 32 colonists to settle Quebec in order to establish it as a fur-trading center. Only nine colonists survived the first bitter winter in Quebec, but more settlers arrived the following summer.
Champlain arrived in Orillia, then the site of a Huron village, with his party of approximately 200 canoes. He would later accompany a large group of Huron Indians as they Champlain traveled from Lake Simcoe, through the Kawartha Lakes and rivers to the territory south of Lake Ontario to fight the Iroquois. He was the first white man to travel this water route from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario.
In 1925, the Champlain Monument was unveiled in Couchiching Beach Park for the 300th anniversary of French explorer Samuel de Champlain's visit to the area. The statue shows a fur trader and Jesuit priest talking to four Huron Indians.
