Jean Baptiste de La Vérendrye

He was born on Île Dupas near Sorel, New France[1] Jean Baptiste, with three brothers, Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye, François de La Vérendrye, and Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye, served in the expedition his father led west in 1731.

When they arrived at Fort Kaministiquia some of the engagés (indentured employees), exhausted by the long journey by canoe from Montreal and discouraged by the difficult portages facing them, refused to go on.

His father's second in command, Christopher Dufrost de La Jemeraye and Jean Baptiste led a smaller advance party west to Rainy Lake and established a fort they named Fort St. Pierre (after the parish church where Jean Baptiste was baptised).

[1] On June 6, 1736, Sioux Indians ambushed a party led by Jean Baptiste soon after they left Fort St. Charles on Lake of the Woods.

[1] Jean-Baptiste de La Vérendrye's share in the construction of Fort Maurepas makes him one of the founders of the present province of Manitoba.