Louis Louis Series 3 Traditional Cache
Pika Wants Cake : It had a good run and I hoped everyone enjoyed it.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This cache is to introduce you to a few famous Louis’ in history.
This particular cache is about Louis Hennepin and Louis Joliet;
both were explorers of the Mississippi river. Here’s a very brief
amount of info regarding both Louis’. Hope you’ll enjoy this
series! Permission was requested and granted to place this cache.
There is also an info board with local history and of course a
spectacular view of the Mississippi River.
Hennepin was born in Ath, Belgium on 12 May 1626. He traveled to
Québec in 1675, where, for the next two years, he worked as a
missionary among the Iroquois Indians. In 1678 he accompanied the
French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, on an
expedition through the Great Lakes to the Illinois River, on the
banks of which they built Fort Creve Coeur, near the site of
present-day Peoria. From there Hennepin was sent by La Salle on a
voyage to explore the upper Mississippi River, which he did by
canoe. Hennepin explored and named the Falls of Saint Anthony
(present-day Minneapolis, Minnesota). Proceeding further, he was
captured by Sioux Indians, with whom he lived until his rescue the
following year by a French exploring party from the Lake Superior
region. After returning to France in 1683, Father Hennepin
published “A Description of Louisiana”, an account of his travels,
which was later exposed as plagiarism of La Salle's own accounts.
For offering La Salle's narrative as his own and for claiming to
have discovered the mouth of the Mississippi, Hennepin was exiled
from France. He later wrote “A New Voyage” (1696) and “A New
Discovery of a Vast Country in America” (1697). Louis Hennepin was
the first European to explore the upper Mississippi River.
Louis Joliet was born on September 21, 1645 in the province of
Quebec, Canada. He and Father Jacques Marquette found the
Mississippi River in 1673; they were the first Caucasians to see
the Mississippi River. Together, they traveled along Lake Michigan
to Green Bay, canoed up the Fox River, and went downstream on the
Wisconsin River to the Mississippi River. They traveled almost to
the mouth of the Arkansas, and then stopped because they were
warned of hostile Indians and Spanish explorers. They returned via
the Illinois River, then the Chicago River to Lake Michigan.
Joliet's journal and his maps were lost when his canoe overturned
on the rapids of the Montreal River. His establishment of the fact
that the Mississippi was a highway to the sea led to the immediate
formation of plans on the part of Canadian merchants and officers
for the settlement of the Mississippi Valley. Marquette's diary is
all that remains of their journey. Joliet expanded fur trade
westward, did extensive mapping, and established a fort on
Anticosti Island. In 1693 he was appointed royal hydrographer, and,
on April 30, 1697, he was granted the seigniory of Joliet, south of
Quebec, which is still in the possession of his descendants. He
died in Canada in May, 1700, one of the first native Americans to
have achieved historical distinction.
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