Article

Daniel Greysolon Dulhut

Published Online February 7, 2006

Last Edited April 23, 2014

Daniel Greysolon Dulhut, coureur de bois, fur trader, explorer (b at St-Germain-Laval, France c 1639; d at Montréal 25 Feb 1710). Dulhut helped extend the French trading empire around the Upper Great Lakes.

Daniel Greysolon Dulhut, coureur de bois, fur trader, explorer (b at St-Germain-Laval, France c 1639; d at Montréal 25 Feb 1710). Dulhut helped extend the French trading empire around the Upper Great Lakes (see Fur Trade). After military service in France, Dulhut immigrated to New France in 1675. In 1678-79 with a small party he travelled to the country of the Sioux (headwaters of the Mississippi), where he formally claimed the area for France, persuaded the Sioux [Dakota] and their neighbours to accept a tentative peace agreement, and began a profitable trade in furs. He returned to Montréal in 1681.

In 1683 he was commissioned by Governor La Barre to return to the Lake Superior area, and he spent the next 3 years there trading and working to keep peace among the natives. Stationed at Michilimackinac, he built posts at Lake Nipigon and at Kaministiquia on Lake Superior to facilitate the trade, as well as one at Detroit. Dulhut took part in the campaigns of the Iroquois Wars in 1687, 1689 and 1696, when he was left in command at Fort Frontenac. The city of Duluth, Minnesota, at the head of Lake Superior, is named for him.