Two islands in Lake of the Woods bear the name Massacre, one on the Canadian side of the boundary and one on the American side, because of events connected with Fort St. Charles. In 1732, French-Canadian explorer and trader Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye built Fort St. Charles at Northwest Angle inlet on Lake of the Woods as a base for trading with the Cree and Assinboine for furs to finance explorations for a passage to the Western Sea. Early in June 1736, La Vérendrye sent his son Jean Baptiste, the priest Father Pierre Aulneau, and nineteen voyageurs eastward for supplies, but at their first campsite, a small rocky island seven leagues from the fort, they were attacked and killed by a Sioux war party. The bodies were decapitated and placed in a row, the heads of the voyageurs were wrapped in beaver pelts and left near the bodies, and the heads of Jean Baptiste and Father Aulneau may have been carried off as trophies. Several weeks later, a party of Chippewa discovered the victims on a small island and, out of reverence for the priest and because they could not dig a grave on the rocky ground, raised a stone cairn over his body. When the elder La Vérendrye learned of the tragedy, he had the remains taken to Fort St. Charles and buried near the chapel, where they were found in 1908 by an archaeological party from St. Boniface College in Manitoba, Canada. The island where the killings occurred has never been satisfactorily identified.