Father Aulneau went back with De la Verendrye as chaplain.  The trip was made at terrible speed, in the hottest season, through stifling forest fires.  Behind, at slower pace, came the provisions.  De la Verendrye reached the Lake of the Woods in September.  Fearing the delay of the goods for trade, and dreading the danger of famine with so many men in one place, De la Verendrye despatched Jemmeraie to winter with part of the forces at Lake Winnipeg, where Jean and Pierre, the second son, had built Fort Maurepas.  The worst fears were realized.  Ice had blocked the Northern rivers by the time the supplies had come to Lake Superior.  Fishing failed.  The hunt was poor.  During the winter of 1736 food became scantier at the little forts of St. Pierre, St. Charles, and Maurepas.  Rations were reduced from three times to once and twice a day.  By spring De la Verendrye was put to all the extremities of famine-stricken traders, his men subsisting on parchment, moccasin leather, roots, and their hunting dogs.

He was compelled to wait at St. Charles for the delayed supplies.  While he waited came blow upon blow:  Jean and Pierre arrived from Fort Maurepas with news that Jemmeraie had died three weeks before on his way down to aid De la Verendrye.  Wrapped in a hunter’s robe, his body was buried in the sand-bank of a little Northern stream, La Fourche des Roseaux.  Over the lonely grave the two brothers had erected a cross.  Father and sons took stock of supplies.  They had not enough powder to last another month, and already the Indians were coming in with furs and food to be traded for ammunition.  If the Crees had known the weakness of the white men, short work might have been made of Fort St. Charles.  It never entered the minds of De la Verendrye and his sons to give up.  They decided to rush three canoes of twenty voyageurs to Michilimackinac for food and powder.  Father Aulneau, the young priest, accompanied the boatmen to attend a religious retreat at Michilimackinac.  It had been a hard year for the youthful missionary.  The ship that brought him from France had been plague-stricken.  The trip to Fort St. Charles had been arduous and swift, through stifling heat; and the year passed in the North was one of famine.

Accompanied by the priest and led by Jean de la Verendrye, now in his twenty-third year, the voyageurs embarked hurriedly on the 8th of June, 1736, five years to a day from the time that they left Montreal—­and a fateful day it was—­in the search for the Western Sea.  The Crees had always been friendly; and when the boatmen landed on a sheltered island twenty miles from Fort St. Charles to camp for the night, no sentry was stationed.  The lake lay calm as glass in the hot June night, the camp-fire casting long lines across the water that could be seen for miles.  An early start was to be made in the morning and a furious pace to be kept all the way to Lake Superior, and the voyageurs were