New France
The pioneers of New France, on their part seeking a transcontinental
waterway from the east, had throughout the first
two-thirds of the eighteenth century made several
costly attempts to discover and surmount the great
divide. Upon New Year's day, 1743, the Chevalier
de la Vérendrye, journeying overland from his fur-trading
post on the Assiniboin River, sighted the Wind River Range.
Affairs moved slowly, under the French régime; but yearly
the prospect was growing brighter of reaching the Pacific by
way of a chain of posts across the Canadian Rockies, via the
Assiniboin and Saskatchewan, when the victory of Wolfe cut
short these ambitious projects, and England succeeded both
to the responsibilities and the dreams of New France.
