Historical Context
Le Griffon was the first full-sized sailing ship on the upper Great Lakes of North America and she led the way to modern commercial shipping in that part of the world. Historian J.B. Mansfield reported that this "excited the deepest emotions of the Indian tribes, then occupying the shores of these inland waters".
French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, sought a Northwest Passage to China and Japan to extend France's trade. Creating a fur trade monopoly with the Native Americans would finance his quest and building Le Griffon was an "essential link in the scheme". While work continued on Le Griffon in the spring of 1679 as soon as the ice began to break up along the shores of Lake Erie, La Salle sent out men from Fort Frontenac in 15 canoes laden with supplies and merchandise to trade with the Illinois for furs at the trading posts of the upper Huron and Michigan Lakes.
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