Louis Jolliet, also known as Louis Joliet (September 21, 1645 – May 22 1700), was a Canadian explorer born in Quebec City. Jolliet is important for his discoveries in North America. Jolliet and missionary Father Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest, were the first white men to explore and map the Mississippi River.

...Two decades later, in 1671, French explorer and priest Jacques Marquette founded the town of St. Ignace on the spot where de Brébeuf was killed. Six miles from there, the town of Ste...

La Salle led his first expedition in 1669, in which he reached the Ohio River and followed it as far as Louisville, Kentucky, but not the Mississippi, which Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette discovered in 1672. His group consisted of five canoes and 12 men. Father Dollier de Casson traveled with him as far as Hamilton, Ontario with seven men in another three canoes...