Louis Fornel (August 20, 1698 – May 30, 1745) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

, and

seigneur ''Seigneur'' is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. A seigneur refers to the person or collective who owned a ''seigneurie'' (or ...

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...

. Involved in maritime trade and both born and married into prominent Quebec families, Louis Fornel was among the partners Louis Bazil convinced to invest in his ill-fated

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

sealing station. Determined to claim a sealing concession of his own, Fornel explored

Hamilton Inlet __NOTOC__ Hamilton Inlet is a fjord-like inlet of Groswater Bay on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Together with Lake Melville, it forms its province's largest estuary, extending over inland to Happy V ...

(until then known as Baie des Esquimaux and named Baie Saint-Louis) in Labrador aboard the ''Expérience'', which he owned with François Havy and Jean Lafebvre. According to his record of the journey, Fornel devised an experiment to prove that the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

did not, as was commonly supposed, live on raw meat and salt water. Fornel's claim to the Bay was never formally recognised until after his death, when it was granted to his widow,

Marie-Anne Barbel Marie-Anne Barbel (26 August 1704 – 16 November 1793) was a French-Canadian Businesswomen who lived in New France. She is notable for leading several successful business enterprises after the death of her husband, Louis Fornel. Early life Ma ...

, who carried on the family business. Some time in the 1740s, Fornel bought a parcel of land adjacent to

Notre-Dame-des-Anges Notre-Dame-des-Anges is a parish municipality in Quebec, Canada, home of the General Hospital of Quebec. Enclaved within the territory of Quebec City, this unusual municipality had a population of 241 and measures only 6 hectares (15 acres) in ...

– and perhaps more importantly, the status that came with the title of seigneur—which he named Bourg-Louis.

References

* French explorers 1698 births People of New France 1745 deaths French merchants 18th-century French businesspeople {{Canada-business-bio-stub, Fornel, Louis