Seventeenth-century New France, the great colony in Canada, was a continuing problem to the French government. A man of unusual courage and independence was needed to govern the vast country with a sparse, but unruly, population. Such a man was Louis Frontenac.

Here Ronald Syme tells the individual story of this colonial governor and also presents a broad view of life in early Canada. On his arrival in Quebec Frontenac found before him a huge empty country of savages and loneliness, of rocky cliffs and dripping pine trees, of somber skies and silence. Only small settlements were scattered along three hundred miles of shore of the St. Lawrence River, while the spirited coureurs de bois ranged through the forests gathering furs. Frontenac's task was to weld these isolated people into a united colony capable of defending itself against marauding Indians and the continuing threat of the neighboring British.

This graphic biography, illustrated with vigorous line drawings, relates Frontenac's accomplishments in dramatic style and shows how strongly he influenced the course of North American history.

From the dust jacket