One For The Road: The Maiden Voyage Of Le Griffon
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 7, 2012 10:40PM
On this date in 1679, Le Griffon set sail on its maiden voyage, the first to sail across the Great Lakes from Lake Erie, through Lake Huron and into Lake Michigan. The crew of 32 left Niagara with René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, leading them. The boat made it to Green Bay, where LaSalle left, then the boat and its six remaining crew members disappeared during the return voyage.
Great Lakes Expedition writes:
On September 18, 1679, La Salle dispatched a crew of six to sail Le Griffon back to Niagara to pick up men and supplies needed for the construction of forts and a second vessel.Le Griffon sailed from what is known today as Washington Harbor on Washington Island. Father Hennepin, a Franciscan Recollect friar who had accompanied La Salle on the expedition, records that the ship fired a single cannon shot as it set sail. La Salle’s agent and attorney, Claude Bernou, in summarizing La Salle’s letters, wrote, “They set sail on the 18th of September with a light and very favorable wind from the West. It has not been possible to ascertain since what course they steered.” Le Griffon was never seen again.
There are three theories on what happened to Le Griffon. Some believe Native Americans captured the crew and burned the ship, others believe it sank in a sudden storm, and others think the crew just took its load of furs and took off.
The shipwreck may have been found near Michigan in 2004, sparking a mini-conflict among the U.S. and France and Canada while they try to sort out ownership of the wreckage. From this 2009 article:
In 2004, U.S. wreck diver Steve Libert discovered remnants of what he suspects is a 17th-century shipwreck at the north end of Green Bay, near the boundary waters of Michigan and Wisconsin.Experts from Chicago's Field Museum have dated wood samples collected at the wreck site to the era of the Griffon, a 25-metre vessel expected to be the flagship of the fur trade empire New France was building in the fledgling days of the future Canada.
Libert — who is engaged in a legal battle with Michigan's attorney general over the ownership of what could be the "Holy Grail" of Great Lakes shipwrecks — has urged both the French and Canadian governments to back his efforts to explore and possibly recover an iconic ship with deep historical connections to the two countries.
Now, the French embassy in Washington has officially weighed into the controversy by filing a legal claim asserting France's ownership of the wreck if and when the Griffon is found.