Minor moment?

I write not to disagree with your comments concerning the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (“Monumental Moments,” June-July 2019) but to correct an impression left by the article, where it refers to the 1669–70 voyage of François Dollier de Casson and René de Bréhant de Galinée as being a “relatively minor historical episode.”

Consider that de Galinée kept a detailed journal of a journey by canoe and overland that lasted almost one year. He created a map of southern Ontario that was considered so important that, at journey’s end, New France’s intendant, Jean Talon, immediately sent it to the royal court in France. De Galinée’s journal details the involvement of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who accompanied them for part of their journey. It is the earliest detailed description of the man that we have. As well, the Sulpician’s journal describes the Seneca at their village of Ganondagan in what is now upstate New York and the as-yet-undiscovered Iroquois village of Tinaoutoua, located somewhere northwest of what is now Hamilton. The map De Galinée created was later used by La Salle to navigate his ship around the treacheries of Long Point in Lake Erie. Dollier and company were the first to record for Europeans the interconnectedness of the Great Lakes, and they did so just as the surge of the French into the Mississippi Valley was about to begin.

It might be said that the story of Dollier and de Galinée is little known, or little appreciated. But perhaps it cannot be said that it was a “minor historical episode.”

John D. Ayre Norfolk, Ontario

Erratum: Labour Day was designated a statutory holiday in 1894 by the government of Prime Minister John Thompson. Incorrect information appeared in a Currents article in the August-September 2019 issue. We regret the error.