The team visited Montreal to meet with some Battle of Hudson Bay experts.

We first met with the Director of the Stewart Museum, Guy Vadeboncoeur.  He was a great resource and showed us a wedding document signed by Pierre Le Moyne D’Iberville as a witness.  We then visited the Stewart Foundation and spent the afternoon with Eliot Perrin.  Eliot gave us access to their Pelican documents and we have a wealth of information on the size of the ship and what it was outfitted with (especially the size and number of cannon).

We then stopped by a house and warehouse on the St. Lawrence River that was built by Pierre’s father and used as a fur trading post and warehouse.  It is just upstream from the start of the rapids (Lachine) that stopped all larger boats going up the river.  It was easy to imagine Pierre and his father standing on the shores of the river in the 1690s watching canoes laden with furs pull up to the shore.  We could also understand why York Factory and the control of Hudson Bay was important as it was a much shorter trip via ocean going sailboat to pick up the furs.  It is a long row by canoe to Chicago from Montreal.

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