I have lived most of my life in Joliet, Illinois (Les Illinois was the French term for the Illini nation.) For thirty years, we lived in the Marquette Gardens subdivision. Now we live just off Hennepin (another French Canadian explorer) Avenue, close to the Louis Joliet mall. When I was in junior high school I was a volunteer with the Joliet Explorers, a minor league football team. The mascot was a French fur trader named “Louie.” On every trip to the library, I pass the locally famous statue of Louis Jolliet (misspelled as “Louis Joliet” and with a rifle a little too modern for the 17th century).

And yet, I knew so little about him, and what I thought I knew was often wrong. Rediscovering the man has been a fascinating journey, and I am delighted to bring him to you.

My effort has been to make Louis Jolliet neither an apologist for the European colonization of North and South America, nor  a 21st century revisionist who has the benefit of hindsight. Rather, I want to present him as who he was:  a thoughtful man of his times, both daring and planful.