This is Samuel de Champlain’s (1567-1635) very rare most recognisable map, and the last one he published. “Samuel de Champlain, the ‘Father of New France’, was more than the title indicates. He was also the first truly scientific cartographer of North America … Champlain was the single most important factor in the initial success of French attempts at gaining a foothold in America. He spent the majority of his life in New France and devoted considerable energy towards its success. He crossed the Atlantic over twenty times, going back and forth to encourage interest and backing in his home country of France. During his first voyage to the region in 1603, under the command of François Gravé, he travelled up the Saguenay River and went as far west as Montréal. He then made a series of voyages, under Pierre du Gua de Monts, between 1604 and 1607.

In 1608 Champlain again turned his attention to the St. Lawrence River and 3 July set foot at Québec and made it his base. From here he travelled himself and sent scouts out to expand their knowledge of the region. In the summer of 1609 he fought alongside his Indian allies in a skirmish on the shores of Lake Champlain against a party of Mohawk” (Burden).

His wife Hélène came to Quebec to join him in 1620 and disliked it from the start. She remained four years but returned to Paris in 1624 never to return. “In 1625 the first of the Jesuit priests arrived that were to have a great influence on the knowledge of the interior in future years. In 1627 hostilities began between England and France, and Acadia was taken by the English soon after. The English under David Kirke arrived in the St. Lawrence River the following year and laid siege. Champlain managed to bluff his way to the winter. In 1629 however, they returned and had little choice but to surrender and accept transport back to Europe. He immediately started working tirelessly for the return of the territories to France. The Treaty of Saint Germain en Laye signed in March 1632 achieved this for the small price of payment of an old debt. King Louis XIII owed the English crown 600,000 écus as a dowry for his sister Henrietta Maria when she married Charles I” (Burden).

Champlain meanwhile was writing a complete publication on New Feance, or Canada, up to the year 1629. Entitled ‘Les Voyages de la Novvelle France Occidentale, dicte Canada’ it included this magnificent large two-sheet map. It “could be labelled the first to depict the existence of the entire Great Lakes network. Lac St Louis is Lake Ontario, leading up to number ’90’, marking ‘a fall of water at the end of the Falls of St. Louis, very high, where many kinds of fish are stunned in descending’. Above La nation neutre appears a rudimentary Lake Erie followed by a more recognisable Mer douce, Lake Huron, the ‘freshwater sea’. Grand Lac, or Lake Superior, which Champlain never actually saw, is here depicted for the first time in a recognisable form on a map. Reports of its existence probably came to him through Etienne Brûlé, one of the first coureurs de bois. His own map of c.1616, illustrates a confusing water network. Lake Michigan is believed by some authorities to be represented by the river system leading into it from the south called Grande Riuiere qui vient du midy. However, on Sanson’s map of 1650 Lake Michigan is represented by Lac des Puans, which is here unnamed to the north-east of Grand Lac” (Burden).

The map extends as far south as the English colony of Virginia. The Dutch colony of New Netherlands is also illustrated. It “provides one of the areas of most interest in using nomenclature that is of unknown origin. The Hudson River is here called the Riuiere des trettes, and Long Island Isle de l’Ascension. Above these is a reference to an unidentified tribe, ‘Habitation de sauuages maniganaticouoit’. The church depicted is clearly an indication of the Dutch presence in the region and must be construed as the first delineation of present-day New York City on a printed map. Although not shown on an island it is at the tip of a promontory. Upriver the Mohawk is clearly defined, and Lake Champlain is still too far east. There is no reference to the English in New England” (Burden).

This is an example of the second state of three, in which Cape Breton Island now includes mountains. Following its publication Champlain returned to Quebec in 1633, he never returned. In October 1635 he had a stroke and died on Christmas Day. Burden (1996) 160 & 237; Church (1907) nos. 420 & 446; Fite & Freeman (1926) pp. 132-4; Heidenreich (1976); Kershaw (1993) pp. 78-83; Morison (1972); Sabin (1868) no. 11839; Stokes (1915) vol. 2, pp. 127 & 141.