La Salle returned to France, and obtained the grant of the lordship of this fort and the surrounding country on conditions of maintaining the whole cost of the establishment, and making a settlement of colonists.

Another visit to France in 1677-8 secured him further support and capital, and he returned from France with a companion, Henry de Tonty.
La Salle, with de Tonty, started from Fort Frontenac in September, 1678, so intensely anxious to commence his discoveries that he disregarded the difficulties of the winter season.

On his way to Niagara he paid a visit to the Iroquois to conciliate them, and cleverly got from them permission to build a vessel on Lake Erie and also to erect a blacksmith's forge, near where Niagara now stands.

The blacksmith's forge grew rapidly into a fort before the Indians were aware of what was being done.

By August, 1679, he had built and launched (in spite of extraordinary calamities and misfortunes) on the Upper Niagara River the first sailing boat which ever appeared on the four great upper lakes of the St.Lawrence basin.
In this ship he sailed through Lake Erie and past Detroit into Lake Huron, and thence to Green Bay (Lake Michigan), stopping at intervals amongst the canoes of the amazed natives, who for the first time heard the sound of cannon, for he had armed his vessel with guns.