Louis Jolliet: A Solid Path Through Water

Join the LaSalle County Historical Society for an afternoon of local history! 2023 marks the 350th Anniversary of the Jolliet/Marquette expedition. This event will feature an one man play on Louis Jolliet performed by Jim Healy called Louis Jolliet: A Solid Path Through Water. After the play Trolley tours will be offered giving a tour of local area attractions dealing with the Jolliet/Marquette expedition including the site where Marquette and Jolliet first made contact with the Native Americans at the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia(trolley tour is an additional charge).

More about Jim Healy:

I have lived most of my life in Joliet, Illinois (Illinois is the French approximation for the name the Illini Nation used.) For thirty years, we lived in the Marquette Gardens subdivision. Now we live just off Hennepin (another French Canadian explorer) Avenue, close to the Louis Joliet mall. When I was in junior high school I was a volunteer with the Joliet Explorers, a minor league football team. The mascot was a French fur trader named “Louie.” On every trip to the library, I passed the locally famous statue of Louis Jolliet (misspelled as “Louis Joliet” and with a rifle a little too modern for the 17th century).

And yet, I knew so little about him, and what I thought I knew was often wrong. Rediscovering the man has been a fascinating journey, and I am delighted to bring him to you.

My effort has been to make Louis Jolliet neither an apologist for the European colonization of North and South America, nor a 21st century revisionist who has the benefit of hindsight. Rather, I want to present him as who he was: a thoughtful man of his times, both daring and planful.

Host or Publisher LaSalle County Historical Society