There is no image of him other than that provided in his writings and those of the people who encountered him in New France, in Paris on the fringes of the court, on remote Hudson Bay, and in late Stuart London.

[1] Radisson should be considered in multiple contexts; for his achievement as a narrator of his own life, the range of his explorations, his experiences among the Indigenous peoples, and his social formation, both as a man of the early modern period for whom personal honour was an important value and as a working trader participating in the mercantile projects of the era.

[10] They may also have been accompanied by their maternal half-sister Marguerite Hayet,[11] who would eventually marry Radisson's later fur-trading partner, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers.

[13] Not long after Radisson's integration, which took about six weeks,[14] while out hunting with three Mohawk, he met an Algonquin man who convinced him to defect and return to Trois-Rivières.

[17] Radisson's fingernails were pulled out while he was forced to sing, one finger was cut to the bone, and he watched ten Huron Indians get tortured to death.

[17] After three days of similar treatment, the Mohawk brought out Huron prisoners and, using tomahawks, bashed in the heads of some, whereas the rest were adopted by individual families.

[19] Radisson recounts witnessing other torture: "They burned a Frenchwoman; they pulled out her breasts, and took a child out of her belly, with they broyled [broiled] and made the mother eat it, so in short she died".

[22] With other Mohawk warriors, Radisson traveled to a trading post at Fort Orange, then controlled by the Dutch, located in present-day Albany, New York.

[23] Reaching Fort Orange, he was hidden at a farm, then met a Jesuit priest Joseph Antoine Poncet, who made him "a great offer", whereby he returned to Holland in early 1654 under an agreement now unclear but perhaps involving missionary work.

[25] In 1657, Radisson accompanied a joint Franco–Iroquois expedition into Onondaga territory to aid a Jesuit priest named Simon Le Moyne operate his mission and to promote further fur trading.

[26] In the winter of 1659–1660, Radisson and Des Groseilliers lived just south of Lake Superior in what is now Wisconsin, associating with groups of Huron, Ottawa, Ojibwa and Sioux (Dakota) Indians.

[28] He gave each of the men "...a kettle, two hatchets [tomahawks], and six knives and a blade for a sword"; the women "...2 and 20 awls, 50 needles, 2 graters [scrapers] of castors, 2 ivory combs and 2 wooden ones, with red painte [vermilion], 6 looking-glasses of tin"; and to the children "...brasse rings, of small bells, and rasades [beads] of divers colors...".

[28] American historian Bruce White wrote that Radission and Des Groseilliers did not entirely understand Ojibwa society, as the kettles were typically used much more by the women for cooking than by the men.

[30] Radisson was confused at first by what the action meant, but as the women started to engage in more overtly sexual behavior, he quickly realized what they were offering.

[30] When Radisson and Groseilliers returned to Québec on August 24, 1660, with many furs, the merchants waiting for them were delighted to be able to sail with the pelts to Europe, but the Governor was jealous of their success.

Seeing the success of the trip and the number of furs they had brought back, d'Argenson levied high taxes on the men, ostensibly because they had exceeded the terms of their year-long permit by a couple of days.

[31][32] After seeking unsuccessfully in the courts to regain what had been confiscated by the Governor, Radisson and Groseilliers decided to go to Boston in the English Thirteen Colonies for their next explorations.

[26][36] The vessel Eaglet, which was carrying Radisson to Hudson's Bay, nearly sank in an Atlantic storm and was forced to turn back to Plymouth, England.

[37] In September 1668, Nonsuch landed in the Rupert River region on the shores of James Bay, where Des Groseilliers used his knowledge of frontier living to build dwellings for the crew for wintering over.

With the founding of the HBC, Radisson became forced to deal with a European context; there he had to struggle for survival among rival monarchs, competing courtiers, and the changing political and economic world in which they operated.

It was not until the late 18th century that the Hudson's Bay Company showed any interest in moving inland and making good its claims to control Rupert's Land.

[43] As anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiment increased in England following discontent expressed in events such as the Bawdy House Riots of 1668, both Prince Rupert and Sir John decreased their support for the men.

In 1677 he decided to join the navy and to fund Marshal of France, Jean II d'Estrées's expedition in the Franco-Dutch War to conquer the island of Tobago, winning the man's favor.

(They had seized two English parties in time of peace and paid Québec tax on furs from Hudson Bay from their Nelson River fort, which may not have been part of New France.)

In 1684 Radisson sailed for the Hayes River in the vessel Happy Return, where he found Groseilliers' son Jean-Baptiste conducting a brisk trade with the Indians.

Radisson's differences with various Hudson's Bay Company underlings in the 1680s suggests that he was not admired by the English seamen who had to work with him, because of their rooted detestation of the French.