Jean Nicolet (Nicollet), Sieur de Belleborne (1598 – 29 October 1642) was a French coureur des bois noted for exploring Lake Michigan, Mackinac Island, Green Bay, and being the first European to set foot in what is now the U.S. state of Wisconsin.

[1] In 1618, Nicolet immigrated to Quebec as a clerk to train as an interpreter for the Compagnie des Marchands, a trading monopoly owned by members of the French aristocracy.

To learn the language of the First Nations, Nicolet was sent to live with the Algonquins on Allumette Island, a friendly settlement located along the important Ottawa River fur trade route.

On July 19, 1629, when Quebec fell to the Kirke brothers who took control for England, Jean Nicolet fled to the safety of the Huron country.

So sure, was he that he was near the ocean, that he stopped and went back to Quebec to report his discovery of a passage to the "South Sea," unaware that he had just missed finding the upper Mississippi River.

Lurie and Jung propose that the main purpose of Nicolet's mission was to establish peace between New France and the Puants and an alliance against the Iroquois people.

Jacques Gagnon, Jean Nicollet, Interprète et commis de traite, Montréal, Les Éditions Histoire Québec, 2022, 149 p.