Returning then to Lake Michigan, the shores of which seemed to them an earthly paradise with a climate finer than Italy, they journeyed northwards into Lake Huron, and thence north-westwards through the narrow passages of St.Mary's River into Lake Superior.

The southern coast of Lake Superior was followed to its westernmost point, where they made a camp, and from which they explored during the winter (in snowshoes) the Wisconsin country and collected information regarding the Mississippi and its great western affluent the Missouri.

The Mississippi, they declared, led to Mexico, while the other great forked river in the far west was a pathway, perhaps, to the Southern Sea (Pacific).
The Jesuits, on the other hand, were convinced that Hudson's Bay (or the "Bay of the North") was at no great distance from Lake Superior (which was true) and that it must communicate to the north-west with the Pacific Ocean or the sea that led to China.
In 1661, without the leave of the French Governor of Canada, who wanted them to take two servants of his own with them and to give him half the profits of the venture, Chouart and Radisson hurried away to the west, picked up large bodies of natives who were returning to the regions north of Lake Huron, with them fought their way through the ambushed Iroquois, and once more navigated the waters of Lake Superior.

Once again they started for the Mississippi basin and explored the country of Minnesota, coming thus into contact with native tribes which lived on the flesh of the bison.

In Minnesota they met a second time the Kri or Kinistino Indians of north-central Canada, and joined one of their camps in the spring of 1662, somewhere to the west of Lake Superior.