Étienne Brûlé: The Mysterious Life and Times of an Early Canadian Legend

Gratien Allaire is a professor of history at Laurentian University in
Sudbury, Ontario.

Sixteen-year-old Йtienne Brыlé arrived in New France most probably
with explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1608. During a winter-long stay
living among the Huron in 1610–11, he became a truchement
(interpreter). His knowledge of Native languages made him a valuable
link between the French and the First Nations of the Ottawa River and
the Great Lakes area. He adopted the Native way of life, residing most
of the time in Touanché, a Huron village on Lake Simcoe. Over the next
20 years, Brыlé travelled extensively, exploring a territory extending
from Montreal to Lake Erie, and from the Atlantic coast to Lake
Superior. He was the first European to see the area and three or four of
the Great Lakes.

Champlain trusted Brыlé until 1629, when the British captured Quebec
and Brыlé was thought to have helped them. The missionaries had every
reason to dislike Brыlé, whom they considered a libertine and bad
example for the Natives, and thus an obstacle to their work of
conversion. In 1632, Brыlé was killed by the Huron people. At the time
of his death he was viewed as a traitor.

Gail Douglas has drawn on a number of sources for this readable account
of Brыlé, including the writings of Champlain, the Recollect Brother
Gabriel Sagard, and the Jesuits (especially Jean de Brébeuf). It should
also be noted that some of her documentation comes from monographs on
the Huron, particularly Bruce Trigger’s The Children of Aataentsic.

A final remark: since Brыlé’s was the first Frenchman in what is
now known as Ontario, he has become a hero of Franco-Ontarian history.