Minnesota Archives History

      While Minnesota sits in the middle of the North American
continent, and is a thousand or more miles to the west of ancienne Quebec,
and an equal distance north of New Orleans, there has been a French or
French-Canadian presence in what is now Minnesota since the early
explorers like Verendrye visited the lands of the midwest in the 1600s.
Then came the celebrated Voyageurs, and later the legions of settlers
whose roots were deep in the soil and the history of la belle provence,
Quebec.

      The rivers and the Great Lakes were the initial highways into the
interior.

      The greatest wave of French-Canadians found their way to Minnesota
when transportation, particularly the railroad, reached the infant twin
cities from the east, and the first Canadian railroads were completed.
This was first accomplished in the early 1860s. It was about this time
when other waves of Quebecers were moving to the northeastern mill towns.
Land transportation, along with poor economic conditions in Quebec,
facilitated the migration.

      While immigrant groups like the Germans and Scandinavians rapidly
overwhelmed the French-Canadians in numbers in Minnesota, it can fairly be
said that the French-Canadians were here first.
As late as the 1980s, more than 300,000 Minnesotans described
their heritage as French; most of these were French-Canadian. They are
found in all parts of the state, but in particular in the twin cities and
the Red River Valley area which comprises northwestern Minnesota,
northeastern North Dakota, and southern Manitoba.

      Celebrated French names grace Minnesota streets, municipalities
and other places: these are names like Nicolet, Perrot, Marquette,
Joliet, Radisson, Groseilliers, Hennepin, LaSalle, La Verendrye, and many
others. The long and well known Robert Street is St. Paul and suburbs is
named after early trader and shop keeper Louis Robert.