The Pays d'en Haut (French:[pɛ.idɑ̃o]; Upper Country) was a territory of New France covering the regions of North America located west of Montreal. The vast territory included most of the Great Lakes region, expanding west and south over time into the North American continent as the French had explored. The Pays d'en Haut was established in 1610 and depended on the colony of Canada until 1763, when the Treaty of Paris ended New France, and both were ceded to the British as the Province of Quebec.[1]
By 1660, France started a policy of expansion into the interior of North America from Canada, with the objectives to locate a Northwest Passage to China, to exploit the territory's natural resources, such as fur and mineral ores, and to convert the native population to Catholicism. Fur traders began exploring the pays d'en haut, the "upper country" around the Great Lakes at the time. In 1659, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers reached the western end of Lake Superior, where priests founded missions, such as the Mission of Sault Sainte Marie in 1668. In 1671, Father Jacques Marquette established a French mission at Michilimackinac that would over the next half century become a waypoint for exploration, a place for diplomatic relations with natives, and a commercial center for fur trade. On 17 May 1673, Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began the exploration of the Mississippi River, which they called the Sioux Tongo (the large river) or Michissipi. They reached the mouth of the Arkansas River, and then returned upstream, having learned that the great river ran towards the Gulf of Mexico and not towards the Pacific Ocean as they had presumed.
