Jean de Quen

Jean de Quen (May c. 1603 in Amiens, France – 8 October 1659, in Quebec City, Canada) was a French Jesuit missionary, priest and historian.

After a fire destroyed the school, chapel and, Jesuits’ residence in 1640, he resumed his service in Sillery before moving on to a Trois-Rivières post, where he was involved in the establishing another mission.

This mission had been founded the preceding year at Tadoussac, where between spring and the end of August the fur trade brought First Nations people from all parts of the vast territory of the Saguenay.

[2] No European had as yet officially explored the entire length of the Saguenay and the large lake which appeared on a map produced in 1544, by geographer Jean Alfonse.

[3] Bringing two Montagnais with him as guides, Jean de Quen travelled up the Saguenay to Chicoutimi, and took the river of the same name as far as lakes Kenogami and Kénogamishish.