La Vérendrye, Pierre Gaultier De Varennes, Sieur de

La Vérendrye, Pierre Gaultier De Varennes, Sieur de (1685–1749),
French-Canadian explorer, after military service in America and Europe began in 1730 to explore western Canada, in return for a fur trade monopoly. With his sons and a nephew he built a fort on the site of Winnipeg (1738) and traveled overland to the upper Missouri. Two sons got as far west as the Black Hills (1742–43) and other expeditions went to the Saskatchewan and may have reached Wyoming. His Journals and Letters and his sons' were issued (1927).