Louis Jolliet - Explorer of Rivers

by Virginia S. Eifert, Larry Eifert (Editor), Larry Eifert (Illustrator)

Overview

This vivid 240-page biography of the great American woodsman and explorer, Louis Jolliet, is presented in the many aspects of his remarkable life, and skillfully told by the award-winning Mid-western author, Virginia S. Eifert. Two memorial collections of Eifert�s work attest to the brilliance of her writing skills, and that is not lost in this book. It reads like a grand adventure, which in real life it certainly was. First published in 1961 and illustrated with maps of Jolliet�s world, it is now back in print here after the 50th anniversary of its first edition.

Laying the foundation of his adventure-filled life, we see Jolliet first as a child in frontier Quebec during the 1600�s, intent on joining the Jesuits, yet strongly drawn to the mysterious forests and the lure of the rivers and sea. We travel with him on his journeys to the western reaches of the American Great Lakes, later in his exploration of the upper tributaries and the main course of the Mississippi, and again into the north Canada tundra region. On all occasions, Jolliet was, if not THE first, then among the very earliest white explorers to see and write about these places. In a lifetime spent in this region, Jolliet's unequalled familiarity with the St. Lawrence waterway and his accurate mapping of these important routes for navigation matches the life that Virginia Eifert lived as well. While Jolliet initially discovered many of these rivers, Eifert traveled 5,000 miles on towboats and riverboats passionately exploring the same region for her many books. She writes about all these places with skillful and sometimes rye commentary on the life and times of the 1600�s in French America when Canada was a colony of France, but also about the wild nature that was America at the time.

Jolliet�s last major voyage is also described in detail as he sailed along the uncharted Labrador coast, trading with the Eskimos, recording their language sounds in his journal and naming newly discovered bays and islands. The explorer�s personal life receives full attention as well�his happy marriage and his large family, his various commercial interests in minerals, trapping and fishing, and his association with many famous Canadians of his day, particularly the great Frontenac and even King Louis XIV in France. But it is with the supreme woodsman and map maker that this beautifully written book is chiefly interested in, and tells a good tale of America before it was a nation�and Canada before it was a country.

Hold on to your hat, take a canoe paddle in your hands and join Jolliet in a grand adventure.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940016781655
Publisher:	Larry Eifert
Publication date:	04/17/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	653 KB

About the Author

Virginia S. Eifert may have lived her entire life in Springfield,Illinois, but her passions took her much farther, traveling and learning about North America's natural and human history on a much broader scale. Born in 1911, she was ill through much of high school and never attained a high school diploma. Instead, she began journaling, learning nature on an intimate level, then developing a 'nature news' publication that she distributed around her neighborhood. Soon she was asked to write in this same style for one of the largest newspapers in Illinois, and by the time she was 19 she was asked to create, write, illustrate and edit a monthly magazine for the Illinois State Museum. She continued with this effort for 326 issues until 1966 and her early death at age 55. It seemed Virginia knew she had little time, and let none of it pass quietly. At the museum she also published a series of natural history booklets and wrote for many nationally distributed nature magazines such as Audubon and Nature.

In 1954, she published her first major book for a New York publisher, Dodd Mead, and went on to write 19 more, winning several national awards in the process.

Good creativity is a collaborative effort, and her husband, Herman, who had a masters in English and Ecology, became her built-in proof reader. It seemed she was the wild and untamed nature spirit while he worked to shape her words into readable form. It was a good partnership, but not without friction on both sides. Herman was also Education Curator at the Illinois State Museum, and the two found common ground and inspiration there. It was a rarefied situation that their only son, Larry, found himself in, with friends like Rachel Carson, Edwin Way Teale and many other nature-loving professionals of the times, and it was no wonder Larry Eifert has become a nature painter of some skill - how could he not in such a family.
To learn more about Virginia, go to Virginia.larryeifert.com.