DRUILLETTES (Dreuillettes, Drouillettes, Drouillet, Droulletes, Drueillettes, Druilletes), GABRIEL, priest, Jesuit, missionary, and explorer; b. 29 Sept. 1610 in France, possibly at Guéret, where his parents, Germain Druillettes and Antoinete Bourgeois, lived; d. 8 April 1681 at Quebec.

Gabriel Druillettes entered the noviciate of the Society of Jesus on 28 July 1629 at Toulouse. He studied philosophy at Le Puy, and later taught there, at Mauriac, and Béziers. He completed the theology course at Toulouse and was ordained priest in 1641 or 1642. Upon finishing his training as a Jesuit on 15 Aug. 1643, he immediately sailed to Canada. This missionary, whose name survives mainly because of his explorations, merits remembrance for other reasons as well.

Some sources depict Father Druillettes as an expert in wintering with Indigenous hunters. His career was decided by an early reverse. In September 1643 he was to accompany the missionary Jean de Brébeuf to the Huron (Wendat) country but was detained at Quebec by the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) blockade. Consequently, he was sent to Sillery to learn the language of the Montagnais (Innu) people. In the autumn of 1643 the Christian Montagnais asked him to go hunting with them. Druillettes set off in November or December. He carried his baggage on his shoulders as they did, together with his sacred vessels, and hunted moose on snowshoes, sharing in the daily life of the Montagnais. Druillettes’ eyes gradually grew weaker; he became completely blind, and his companions provided a child to lead him around. Druillettes eventually regained his sight; his recovery was reported to have occurred miraculously during a mass. [JR (Thwaites), XXVII, 215–19.]

There is evidence of Druillettes spending the winters of 1647–48, 1649–50, and 1664–65 in a similar way, and he probably spent more like this. He travelled through the woods north of Tadoussac and those along the south shore, in the region of Matane, and through the Notre-Dame mountains, and may have gone to Sept-Îles and to Lac Saint-Jean. Apart from these winter journeys, he accompanied the Montagnais in war and regularly returned to the Tadoussac mission during the summer.

Father Druillettes is best known as the missionary to the Abenaki of the Kennebec River basin. In 1646, influenced by the Montagnais chief Negabamat, the Abenaki asked for a missionary, so Father Druillettes set off from Sillery on 29 August to go to them. He quickly learned their language, visited their villages and the English settlements, and even went by sea to the Penobscot River, meeting the Capuchins who were missionaries in those parts. Druillettes went hunting with the Abenaki in the region of Lake Moosehead (Maine), encountering the usual difficulties but gaining his companions’ confidence more and more. The Abenaki, though not baptized, seemed to appreciate the priest. The Capuchins declared to their Quebec superior that they feared a conflict of authority, and consequently Father Druillettes was not sent back to Maine in 1647 or 1648, despite Abenaki entreaties. But the Capuchin superior then changed his mind, and Father Druillettes returned there on 1 Sept. 1650, with the donné Jean Guérin. This time Druillettes served as ambassador to the governor of Quebec for the preparation of an alliance with New England against the Iroquois. He also carried on missionary work in Maine, acquired valuable friendships among the English, having visited many of their settlements, and returned to Quebec in the spring of 1651 with hopes that would not, however, to come to fruition. He set off again on 22 June of the same year, to exercise his apostolate among the Abenaki and to continue his embassy. The journey required a long detour, since he had to go far up the Saint John River in order to reach the headwaters of the Kennebec. It was reported that the Abenaki had adopted Father Druillettes as one of their own and that the English had urged him to remain in the country. Nonetheless he had to go back in 1652, making his journey in what were likely difficult conditions.

Less well known among Father Druillettes’ merits is the fact that he was the initiator of the project to establish the western missions. Following the reports of explorers Pierre-Esprit Radisson* and Médard Chouart Des Groseilliers, and also of Indigenous people encountered at Tadoussac, he located and took censuses of the various First Nations of these regions. This was in 1655. In 1656 he set off for the west with Léonard Garreau, having already joined up with a party of Algonquin. Before reaching Montreal, Garreau was mortally wounded by the Iroquois, and Druillettes, alone, was obliged to turn back. In 1661 he conceived a plan to resume this journey by way of Tadoussac, the Saguenay, and Hudson Bay. With Claude Dablon and Guillaume Couture* he reached the watershed at Lac Nikabau before the expedition was forced to turn back. Druillettes had to wait until 1670 to carry out his project when, at age 60, he left to take charge at Sault Ste. Marie.

Around 1680 Father Gabriel Druillettes was brought back to Quebec, where, in 1681, he died in his seventy-first year. His few writings have no literary interest. His real impact can be seen in the careers of the men whom he formed and inspired: Pierre Bailloquet, Charles Albanel, Jacques Marquette, Claude Dablon, and Henri Nouvel*.

Lucien Campeau