La Salle: A Perilous Odyssey from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico

by Donald Bruce Johnson

Book Overview

Europe's efforts to gain control of the New World form the background of this biography of Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, the first explorer to sail the length of the Mississippi. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815412401
• ISBN13: 9780815412403
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Cooper Square Publishers
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Account of a Doomed Endeavor

This recent book by a very talented writer, Donald Johnson, lacks some of the marketing gimmicks of modern exploration books - there is no breathless blurb on the front cover and there are no obseqious peer reviews on the back. Nevertheless this is an excellent history of LaSalle, the French explorer who discovered the Mississippi - only to lose it. In 1682, LaSalle was the first European explorer to sail (by canoe) all the way down the great river, all the way through the Delta, to modern New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico itself - and then go through the labor of paddling all the way back up to French Canada. He named the newfound Mississipi country "Louisiana" - a label that has stuck to this day, albeit for a smaller geographic zone. La Salle's voyage was a simply staggering feat, and Johnson tells the story very well indeed. Perhaps more remarkable is the tragic story of La Salle's attempted return to the river in 1684, sailing this time from the west coast of France, via Haiti and into the Gulf of Mexico from the open sea - seeking to create a new French colony there. Despite all efforts, La Salle was unable to locate the river mouth, and his expedition ended up marooned in a particularly difficult stretch of Gulf coast in what today is Texas. La Salle ended up being murdered by his own shipmates. A masterful account of La Salle's voyages, with an interesting end-note on the recent efforts to locate the site of his Texan camp.