Massacre Island

Massacre Island. . , Tradition is woven of fact and fiction. Two islands in the Lake of the Woods are named “Massacre,” one on the Canadian, one on the American side of the boundary. The Canadian island, the larger of the two, is heavily wooded. The American island is small, rocky and barren. These islands were so named because of the following events., In 1732, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye, French-Canadian explorer and trader, built Fort St. Charles at Northwest Angle inlet on Lake of the Woods. From this base he traded with the Cree and Assinboine for furs to finance explorations for a passage to the Western Sea., Early in June, 1736, La Vérendrye sent his son, Jean Baptiste, with the priest, Father Pierre Aulneau, and nineteen voyageurs eastward for supplies. At their first campsite, a small rocky island “seven leagues” from the Fort, they were attacked and killed by a Sioux war party. The bodies were decapitated and placed in a row. The heads of the voyageurs were wrapped in beaver pelts and left near the bodies. Those of Jean Baptiste and Father Aulneau may have been carried off as trophies. , Several weeks after the massacre, a party of Chippewa passed a small island and discovered the victims of the massacre. Out of reverence for the priest, and because they could not dig a grave on the rocky island, they raised a stone cairn over his body., When he learned of the tragedy, the elder La Vérendrye had the remains of the men taken to Fort St. Charles and buried near the chapel. They were found there in 1908 by an archaeological party from St. Boniface College, Manitoba, Canada. , The island where the massacre occurred has never been satisfactorily identified.