Snippet: "The Discovery of the Northwest"

Details on geographic indistinction between Asia and the Americas in early modern Europe.

Both Shea and Parkman, in their histories of Northwestern discovery, recognize John Nicolet as among the early explorers. Parkman tells the story of the traveller's approach to a Winnebago village, clothed in a long robe of Chinese damask covered with rich embroidery of birds and flowers. Rumours had reached the French in Canada of a people from the far west, without hair or beards, who came in trade with the Indians beyond the Great Lakes. These people, it was conjectured, must needs be Asiatics; for nobody doubted then that Far Kathay was far only when sought for by an eastern voyage of journey; but the westward traveller would soon and surely come upon those wonderful kingdoms of the great Khan. Columbus, on his last voyage, had sent out messengers to find the court of that renowned monarch, which he was sure could not be many miles distant from the coast of the Carribean Sea. they were no wiser in Quebec when, nearly a hundred and fifty years afterward, Champlain sent Nicolet on an exploring expedition westward, and the ambassador was furnished with this gorgeous robe of damask that he might be in suitable apparel to meet the mandarins of the East. 

From The Dominion Illustrated, 9th Feb, 1889, pg. 95.