The development of a hydrographic school in Normandy during the 16th century was an expression of this northwestern French province’s maritime dynamism. 

Les voyages d’exploration, assortis d’objectifs coloniaux, reprennent sous le règne d’Henri IV avec le retour de la paix civile et religieuse en 1598.

From the 16th to the 18th century, explorers, geographers, and the French government were committed to the search for a passage that would facilitate travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, allowing straightforward access to the treasures of the Asia-Pacific World.

Long celebrated as the discoverer of the Mississippi and the founder of Louisiana, René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle (1643-1687) was, strictly speaking, neither.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Europeans had little to no knowledge of the Pacific coast from Mexico to the Arctic Circle. There was a double uncertainty in the North Pacific: Was North America connected to Asia? Did a passage exist that would facilitate travel between the Atlantic and Pacific?

Canadian caterers and explorers, Pierre Gaultier de La Varennes et de La Vérendrye (1685-1749) and his three sons Jean-Baptiste, Pierre and François, searched for a hypothetical "Western Sea" from 1731 to 1744 .