The ship landed on an island in northern Lake Michigan adjacent to Green Bay where the local tribes had gathered with animal pelts to trade with the French.

Creating a fur trade monopoly with the Native Americans would finance his quest and building Le Griffon was an "essential link in the scheme".

His last expedition in 1684 starting from France explored an area on the Gulf coast in eastern Texas where he perished attempting to establish a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi.

With La Salle back aboard their vessel, the company again sailed west until, about 25 miles (40 km) from Niagara, weather checked their progress.

[notes 5][page needed] When La Salle heard of the loss (through a messenger or one of the natives), he left Niagara and joined in the salvage effort.

Having lost needed supplies, La Salle left the building of Le Griffon under Tonti's care, and set out on foot to return to Fort Frontenac.

[notes 6][page needed] After La Salle's departure, Tonti refloated the little brigantine, and attempted to use it for more salvage work at the wreck, but the winter weather prevented success.

[citation needed] A female Native informant who was of the tribe foiled the plans of hostile Senecas to burn Le Griffon as she grew on her stocks.

The unrest of the Seneca and dissatisfied workmen were continually incited by secret agents of merchants and traders who feared La Salle would break their monopoly on the fur trade.

[2] When the Seneca again threatened to burn the ship, she was launched earlier than planned in Cayuga Creek channel of the upper Niagara River with ceremony and the roar of her cannons.

[1] The tumultuous sound of Le Griffon's cannons so amazed the Native Americans that the Frenchmen were able to sleep at ease for the first time in months when they anchored off shore.

[2] In July 1679, La Salle directed 12 men to tow Le Griffon through the rapids of the Niagara River with long lines stretched from the bank.

"[1] Father Hennepin wrote that during the fearful crisis of the storm, La Salle vowed that if God would deliver them, the first chapel erected in Louisiana would be dedicated to the memory of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron of the sailor.

[1] Upon Le Griffon's safe arrival at St. Ignace, the voyagers fired a salute from her deck that the Hurons on shore volleyed three times with their firearms.

[2] La Salle dressed in a scarlet cloak bordered with lace and a highly plumed cap, laid aside his arms in charge of a sentinel and attended mass with his crew in the chapel of the Ottawas and then made a visit of ceremony with the chiefs.

[1][2] The short open-water season of the upper Great Lakes compelled La Salle to depart for Green Bay on 12 September, five days before Tonti's return.

Le Griffon rode out a violent storm for four days and then on 18 September, the pilot Luc and five crew sailed under a favorable wind for the Niagara River with a parting salute from a single gun.

She carried a cargo of furs valued at from 50,000 to 60,000 francs ($10,000 – $12,000) and the rigging and anchors for another vessel that La Salle intended to build to find passage to the West Indies.

"[11] La Salle's account was as follows: "The barque having anchored at the north of the Lac des Illinois, the pilot, against the opinion of some savages who assured him that there was a great storm in the middle of the lake, wanted to continue his voyage without considering that the sheltered location where he was prevented him from knowing the strength of the wind.

He was barely a quarter of a league from the shore when the savages saw the barque tossed in a manner so extraordinary that, unable to resist the storm even though all of the sails were lowered, a short time later they lost her from sight, and they believed that she was pushed against the shoals that are near the Isles Huronnes, where she was buried.

But in another of La Salle's letters, of which only a fragment survives, continues the narrative, via a Native boy, who was given to La Salle as a slave: "He has seen the pilot of the barque that was lost in the lac des Illinois and one of the sailors, which he described to me with details so particular that I cannot doubt it, who were taken with their four comrades in the river Mississippi, while going up toward the Nadouessiou in bark canoes; that the four others were killed and eaten, this the pilot avoided by detonating one of the grenades that they had stolen from the barque and making them understand that if life were given to him and his comrade, he would destroy with similar ones the villages of the enemies of those who had captured them.

These savages brought, the following spring, the Frenchmen to the village of the Missourites, where they went to treat for peace, and the pilot detonated, at their request, a grenade, in the presence of this young Pana who was there at the time.

This is all the more probable as the man named La Rivière, de Tours, who deserted me to follow du Luth, was in the barque, where I had left him after having recaptured him.

Some have reported that the Indians no sooner perceived this large vessel sailing over their lakes, than they gave themselves up for lost, unless they could succeed in disgusting the French with this mode of navigating; that the Iroquois in particular, already preparing for a rupture with us, seized this opportunity to spread distrust of us among the Algonquin nations; that they succeeded, especially with the Ottawas, and that a troop of these last, seeing the Griffin at anchor in a bay, ran up under pretext of seeing a thing so novel to them; that, as no one distrusted them, they were allowed to go aboard, where there were only five men, who were massacred by these savages; that the murderers carried off all the cargo of the vessel, and then set it on fire.

Another candidate is a debris field adjacent to Poverty Island at the entrance to Green Bay discovered by private maritime company The Great Lakes Exploration Group In 2018.

The possible remains of Le Griffon were found in 1898 by lighthouse keeper Albert Cullis, on a beach on the western edge of Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron.

After years of legal squabbles the Michigan Department of Natural Resources issued a permit, and on 16 June 2013, an underwater pit was dug allowing US and French archeologists to examine the object for the first time.

In response to a request to excavate the wreck, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in an email, has dismissed the Liberts' claim, detailing thus: "Our archeologist's review of recently published media images reveals the remains of a shipwreck that features typical late 19th-century Great Lakes shipbuilding materials and methodologies, and scantlings that are entirely too large to be a French colonial vessel.

The keelson structure with mast steps, paired floors and futtocks, and ceiling timbers all suggest a sailing craft, probably a schooner or schooner-barge, that was built and operated during the last half of the 1800s.

Michigan state maritime archaeologist Wayne R. Lusardi presented evidence that the wreck was, in fact, a tugboat due to its 90-foot (27 m) length and presence of a steam boiler.