Champlain's Dream

Toronto: Vintage Canada. Very Good+. 2009. First Edition. Softcover. 030739767X . Card covers show very light shelf wear.; A bright, solid book. B&W illustrations throughout; Trade PB; 6.12 X 1.84 X 9.2 inches; 834 pages; "With consummate narrative skill and comprehensive scholarship, Fischer unfolds alife shrouded in mystery, a complex, elusive man among many colorful characters. Born on France's Atlantic coast, Samuel de Champlain grew up in a country bitterly divided by religious wars. But, like Henry IV, one of France's greatest kings whose illegitimate son he may have been and who supported his travels from the Spanish Empire in Mexico to the St. Lawrence and the unknown territories, Champlain was religiously tolerant in an age of murderous sectarianism. Soldier, spy, master mariner, explorer, cartographer, and artist, he maneuvered his way through court intrigues in Paris, supported by Henri IV and, later, Louis XIII, though bitterly opposed by the Queen Regent Marie de Medici and the wily Cardinal Richelieu . But his astonishing dedication and stamina triumphed…. Champlain was an excellent navigator. He went to sea as a boy, acquiring the skills that allowed him to make 27 Atlantic crossings between France and Canada, enduring raging storms without losing a ship, and finally bringing with him into the wilderness his young wife, whom he had married in the middle age. In the place he called Quebec, on the beautiful north shore of the St. Lawrence, he founded the first European settlement in Canada, where he dreamed that Europeans and First Nations would cooperate for mutual benefit. There he played a role in starting the growth of three populations — Québécois, Acadian, and Métis — from which millions descend." .