The Nome daily nugget., 1935-01-12
@ @paC.
 NAviOATi0h co.

| entaIs Marco Polo had written about several l centuries before and that in finding them. the long sought new route to China might be discOv- cred That was why Nlcolet carried with him "a superb robe of Chinese damask, embroidered all
 over with flowers and birds" He was prepared to make a proper appearance on meeting the Chinese mandarns.
 Nicolet left Three Rivers Que. July 1. 1884, in company with three Jesuits Fathers Brebeuf, Daniel and Davost, who were accompanying
 band of Hurons on their way home from their annual trading visit to Quebec. He travelled with them to the Isles des Allumettes where he lin-
 gered for a time with his friends. the Algon- ouins. Later he joined the Jesuits at Ihonatiria,
 where he assembled a party of seven Hurons and embarked in frail canoe for his Journey
 into the West
 Crossing Lake Huron, the party journeyed up St Mary's river to what is now Sault Ste. Marie,
 returned south, then proceeded west through the Straits of Mackinac and padded out into Lake
 Michigan, which was known then and for many
 years afterward as the Lake of the Illinois. Con- tinuing southward Nicolet and his Indian friends
 entered Green bay and near the head of that
 body of water he found the people he had been sent to find-the Winnebagoes who had come to blows with the Hurons, allies of the French, and with whom he had been charged to negotiate a peace.
 "When he neared the Winnebago town, he sent | a messenger ahead to announce his coming, and,
 having put on his gorgeous robe, followed him
 on the scene" writes William Henry Johnson in
 "French Pathfnders in North America" "Never | did a circus, making Its grand entry into vil-
 lage in all the glory of glded chariots and brass band inspire deeper awe than this primitive am
 bassador, with his flaming robe and a pair of
 pistols; which he fired continually His pale face, the first the Winnebagoes had ever seen, gave them a sense of something unearthly. The squaws and children fled into the woods, shrieking that | 1t was a manitou (spirit) armed with thunder and lightning The warriors however, stood their
 ground bravely and later entertained him with
 feast of one hundred and twenty beaver.
 But if Nicolet did not succeed in opening
 relations with Cathay and Cipango (China and Japan), he did something else that entities him to be commemorated among the Pathfnders. He | ascended Fox river to its headwaters, crossed
 the little divide that separates the waters flowing
 into the Lakes from those that empty into the | Gulf of Mexico and launched his canoe on the | Wisconsin, first white man, so far as we know,
 who foated on one of the upper tributaries of the mighty river"
 Nicolet made such favorable impression on the Winnebagoes that he was able to negotiate
 treaty with them by which they agreed to take their furs to the French posts on the St. Law renee He also won the friendship of the Mas coutins, spent the winter with them and returned
 to Quebec in 1885 to report to Champlain of his | adventures in the west.
 Eight years after this historic journey, Nico
 let met a tragic death In the St Lawrence river | By this time he was the chief official of the trading company at Quebec and his influence among the Indians was perhaps greater thar that of any other man of his time. In 1642 word reached Quebec that Sokokl