The Hurons were terrified at what they had done, and thought they heard or saw in the sky the spirits of the white relations of Brule--some said the sister, some the uncle--threatening their town (Toanche), which they soon afterwards burnt and deserted.
In 1615 Champlain, returning from France, had brought out with him friars of the Recollet order.[4] These were the pioneer missionaries of Canada, prominent amongst whom was FATHER LE CARON, and these Recollets traversed the countries in the basin of the St.Lawrence between Lake Huron and Cape Breton Island, preaching Christianity to the Amerindians as well as ministering to the French colonists and fur traders.

One of these Recollet missionaries died of cold and hunger in attempting to cross New Brunswick from the St.Lawrence to the Bay of Fundy, and another--Nicholas Viel--was the first martyr in Canada in the spread of Christianity, for when travelling down the Ottawa River to Montreal he was thrown by the pagan Hurons (together with one of his converts) into the waters of a rapid since christened Sault le Recollet.

Another Recollet, Father d'Aillon, prompted by Brule, explored the richly fertile, beautiful country known then as the territory of the Neutral nation, that group of Huron-Iroquois Amerindians who strove to keep aloof from the fierce struggles between the Algonkins and Hurons on the one hand and the eastern Iroquois clans on the other.

This region, which lies between the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, is the most attractive portion of western Canada.

Lying in the southernmost parts of the Dominion, and nearly surrounded by sheets of open water, it has a far milder climate than the rest of eastern Canada.
[Footnote 4: The Recollet (properly Recollect) friars were a strict branch of the Franciscan order that were sometimes called the Observantines.