Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye
| Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 17, 1685 Trois-Rivières, New France |
| Died | December 5, 1749 (aged 64) Montreal, New France |
Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (November 17, 1685 – December 5, 1749) was a French Canadian military officer, fur trader and explorer. In the 1730s he and his four sons opened up the area west of Lake Superior and thus began the process that added Western Canada to the original New France in the Saint Lawrence basin. He was also the first known European to reach North Dakota and the upper Missouri River. In the 1740s two of his sons crossed the prairie as far as Wyoming and were the first Europeans to see the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico.
Born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Pierre was the youngest son of René Gaultier de Varennes, who came to Canada as a soldier in 1665, and Marie, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, the first Governor of Trois-Rivières. The Gaultier family were minor nobility or landowners and came from the Anjou area of France. Varennes and La Vérendrye were two of their estates.
Pierre's father died when he was six and he was educated at the Jesuit seminary in Quebec. At the age of 14 he received a cadet’s commission in the colonial regulars. In 1704 and 1705 he took part in Queen Anne's War and was present at the Raid on Deerfield. This involved a 300-mile journey through the wilderness to attack the inhabitants of a sleeping village. The next year he participated in an unsuccessful attack on St. John's, Newfoundland.
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