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Western Great Lakes: Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin

Waters”—the Mississippi—near pres- ent-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. They followed the western bank of the river as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas River. On their return trip, the explorers cut across today’s Illinois via the Illinois River. They had to portage to reach the Chicago River, which took them to Lake Michigan. In his official report about the expedition, Joliet urged that a French

1673, the governor of New France (Canada) dispatched a small expedi- tion . Its mission was to find and chart a large river that Indians in the Great Lakes region spoke of. Leading the expedition were a fur trader named Louis Joliet and a Jesuit priest named Jacques Marquette. They and their men set off in canoes from the north- ern shore of Lake Michigan. Joliet and Marquette reached the river Indians called “the Father of

Barges in the Illinois River above the system of locks and floodgates at Starved Rock.