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- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
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-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
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-Title: By Canadian Streams
-
-Author: Lawrence J. Burpee
-
-Release Date: July 02, 2012 [EBook #38933]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY CANADIAN STREAMS ***
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38933 ***
Produced by Al Haines.
@@ -1454,376 +1429,4 @@ lie within the compass of the present sketch.
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38933 ***
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- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-
-
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-
-Title: By Canadian Streams
-
-Author: Lawrence J. Burpee
-
-Release Date: July 02, 2012 [EBook #38933]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY CANADIAN STREAMS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Al Haines.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: Cover]
-
-
-
-
- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-
-
- BY
-
- LAWRENCE J. BURPEE
-
-
-
-
- TORONTO
- THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED
-
-
-
-
- _Entered at_
- _Stationers Hall_
- 1909
-
-
-
-
- THE RIVERS OF CANADA
-
-
-Who that has travelled upon their far-spreading waters has not felt the
-compelling charm of the rivers of Canada? The matchless variety of their
-scenery, from the gentle grace of the Sissibou to the tempestuous
-grandeur of the Fraser; the romance that clings to their shores--legends
-and tales of Micmac and Iroquois, Cree, Blackfoot, and Chilcotin;
-stories of peaceful Acadian villages beside the Gaspereau, and fortified
-towns along the St. Lawrence; of warlike expeditions and missionary
-enterprises up the Richelieu and the Saguenay; of heroic exploits at the
-Long Sault and at Verchres; of memorable explorations in the north and
-the far west? How many of us realise the illimitable possibilities of
-these arteries of a nation, their vital importance as avenues of
-commerce and communication, the potential energy stored in their rushing
-waters? Do we even appreciate their actual extent, or thoroughly grasp
-the fact that this network of waterways covers half a continent, and
-reaches every corner of this vast Dominion?
-
-Two hundred years ago little was known of these rivers outside the
-valley of the St. Lawrence. One hundred years later scores of new
-waterways had been explored from source to outlet, some of them ranking
-among the great rivers of the earth. The Western Sea, that had lured
-the restless sons of New France toward the setting sun, that had
-furnished a dominating impulse to her explorers, from Jacques Cartier to
-La Vrendrye, was at last reached by Canadians of another race--and the
-road that they travelled was the water-road that connects three oceans.
-In their frail canoes these tireless pathfinders journeyed up the mighty
-St. Lawrence and its great tributary the Ottawa, through Lake Nipissing,
-and down the French river to Georgian Bay; they skirted the shores of
-the inland seas to the head of Lake Superior, and by way of numberless
-portages crossed the almost indistinguishable height of land to Rainy
-Lake and the beautiful Lake of the Woods. They descended the wild
-Winnipeg to Lake Winnipeg, paddled up the Saskatchewan to Cumberland
-House, turned north by way of Frog Portage to the Churchill, and
-ascended that waterway to its source, where they climbed over Meythe
-Portage--famous in the annals of exploration and the fur trade--to the
-Clearwater, a branch of the Athabaska, and so came to Fort Chipewyan, on
-Lake Athabaska. Descending Slave River for a few miles, they came to
-the mouth of Peace River, and after many days' weary paddling were in
-sight of the Rocky Mountains. Still ascending the same river, they
-traversed the mountains, and by other streams were borne down the
-western slope to the shores of the remote Pacific.
-
-The world offers no parallel to this extraordinary water-road from the
-Atlantic to the Pacific; nor is the tale all told. From that great
-central reservoir, that master-key to the whole system of water
-communications, the traveller might turn his canoe in any direction, and
-traverse the length and breadth of the continent to its most remote
-boundaries: east to the Atlantic, west to the Pacific, north to the
-Arctic or to Hudson Bay, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
-
-The story of Canadian rivers would fill several volumes if one attempted
-to do justice to such a broad and varied theme. One may only hope, in
-the few pages that follow, to give glimpses of the story; to suggest,
-however inadequately, the dramatic and romantic possibilities of the
-subject; to recall a few of the memories that cling to the rivers of
-Canada.
-
-
-
-
- CONTENTS
-
-
- I. The Great River of Canada
- II. The Mystic Saguenay
- III. The River of Acadia
- IV. The War Path of the Iroquois
- V. The River of the Cataract
- VI. The Highway of the Fur Trade
- VII. The Red River of the North
- VIII. The Mighty Mackenzie
-
-
-
-
- By Canadian Streams
-
-
-
- I
-
-
- THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA
-
-
- He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
- Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave;
- He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
- What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height,
- And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
- And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils over sea.
- McGEE.
-
-
-If we abandon ourselves to pure conjecture, we may carry the history of
-the St. Lawrence back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when
-daring Portuguese navigators sailed into these northern latitudes; or to
-the latter half of the fifteenth century, when the Basque fishermen are
-said to have brought their adventurous little craft into the Gulf of St.
-Lawrence; or, if you please, we may push the curtain back to the tenth
-century and add another variant to the many theories as to the course of
-the Northmen from Labrador to Nova Scotia. But while this would make a
-romantic story, it is not history. The Vikings of Northern Europe, and
-the Portuguese and Basques of Southern Europe, _may_ have sailed the
-Gulf of St. Lawrence, and _may_ even have entered the estuary of the
-great river, but there is no evidence that they did, and we must
-surrender these picturesque myths if we are to build our story upon a
-tangible foundation.
-
-With the advent of Jacques Cartier, the bluff and fearless mariner of
-St. Malo, we are upon the solid ground of history. There is nothing
-vague or uncertain about either the personality or achievements of this
-Breton captain. He tells his own story, in simple and convincing
-language. It does not require any peculiar gift of imagination to
-picture the scene that marks the beginnings of the history of the St.
-Lawrence. It was upon an autumn day, some three hundred and seventy-four
-years since. Jacques Cartier, with his little fleet, had searched up and
-down the coasts of the gulf for the elusive and much-desired passage to
-the South Seas, but the passage was not there. His Indian guides,
-Taignoagny and Domagaya, had told him something of the mighty
-stream--the Great River of Canada--upon whose waters his ships were even
-now sailing. How almost incredible it must have seemed to him that this
-vast channel, twenty-five miles across from shore to shore, could be a
-river, and nothing more! What thoughts must have surged through his
-brain that here at last was the long-sought passage, the road to golden
-Cathay! Even when, as he sailed onward, it became certain that this was
-indeed a river, although a gigantic one, Jacques Cartier still had
-reason enough to follow its beckoning finger. The Indians said that to
-explore its upper waters he must take to his boats; but they told him of
-three several native kingdoms that lay along its banks, and they assured
-him that its source was so remote that no man had ever journeyed so far.
-Moreover, it came from the south-west, and there lay, and at no
-impossible distance, as report had it, the Vermilion Sea. He might well
-hope to reach that sea by way of the River of Canada. In any event, he
-determined to try.
-
-A week later the ships were anchored off an island, which Cartier named
-the Isle of Bacchus, because of the abundance of grapes found upon its
-shores. Before him rose the forest-clad heights of Cape Diamond,
-destined to become the key to a Colonial empire, the battling-ground of
-three great nations, the site of the most picturesque and most romantic
-city of America. Even at this time the place was of some importance,
-for here stood the native town of Stadacona, the seat of Donnacona,
-"Lord of Canada."
-
-While the ships rode at anchor, Donnacona came down the river with
-twelve canoes and a number of his people. His welcoming harangue
-astonished Cartier, as much by its inordinate length as by the
-extraordinary animation with which it was delivered. The explorer wasted
-no time, however, in ceremonies. The season was drawing on, and much
-remained to be accomplished. Finding safe quarters for two of his
-vessels in the St. Charles River he continued his voyage in the third,
-in spite of the opposition of Donnacona and his people, who with true
-native jealousy would have prevented his further progress. The ship had
-to be left behind at the mouth of the Richelieu, but with two boats,
-manned by some of his sailors, Cartier pushed on to the third native
-kingdom, Hochelaga, which he reached about the beginning of October. His
-reception here was embarrassing in its enthusiasm, for the people of
-Hochelaga testified their faith in the godlike character of their
-visitor by bringing the sick and the maimed to him to be healed by his
-touch.
-
-Climbing the mountain behind the Indian town--which still bears the name
-he then gave it of Mont Royal--Cartier eagerly scanned the country to
-the westward. He could trace the St. Lawrence on one side, and on the
-other saw for the first time its great tributary the Ottawa. The way
-was still open, but rapids barred the further progress of his boats. It
-was too late to do anything more this season, and, taking leave of the
-friendly people of Hochelaga, he returned down the river to Stadacona,
-where in his absence his men had built a substantial fort for the
-winter. With all their preparations, however, a wretched winter was
-passed. The Indians, at first friendly, became distrustful under the
-treacherous influence of Domagaya and Taignoagny, and kept Cartier and
-his men constantly on guard against a possible attack. Added to this,
-the little garrison had to endure the horrors of scurvy. When in the
-following May Cartier made ready to sail back to France, he found it
-necessary to abandon one of his ships and distribute the men between the
-other two vessels. As some satisfaction for the annoyance he had
-suffered at the hands of the Indians, Cartier succeeded in carrying away
-to France not only the troublesome Taignoagny and several of his
-companions, but also the chief, Donnacona.
-
-Cartier sailed for Canada once more in 1541, but only fragmentary
-accounts are available of this voyage. The honest captain of St. Malo
-never succeeded in finding the Vermilion Sea, but he had accomplished
-what was of more importance to future generations--the discovery and
-exploration of the noblest of Canadian rivers. No one who came after
-him could add anything material to this momentous achievement.
-
-For more than half a century after Cartier's final return to France, the
-St. Lawrence was practically abandoned to its native tribes. In 1608,
-however, another famous son of Old France sailed up the St. Lawrence and
-landed with his men at the foot of the same towering rock upon which the
-Indian town of Stadacona had formerly stood. Nothing now remained of
-Donnacona's capital, or of the tribe that once occupied the district.
-The Iroquois, who in Cartier's day dwelt along the borders of the St.
-Lawrence from Stadacona to Hochelaga, had for some unaccountable reason
-abandoned this part of the country, and were now settled between Lake
-Champlain and Lake Ontario. Champlain and those who came after him were
-to find a very different welcome from the descendants of the Indians who
-had welcomed Jacques Cartier to Stadacona and Hochelaga.
-
-Somewhere near the market-place of the Lower Town, Champlain's men fell
-to work to lay the foundations of Quebec. One may get some idea of the
-appearance of the group of buildings, Champlain's _Abitation_, from his
-own rough sketch in the _Voyages_. "My first care," he says, "was to
-build a house within which to store our provisions. This was promptly
-and competently done through the activity of my men, and under my own
-supervision. Near by is the St. Croix River, where of yore Cartier
-spent a winter. While carpenters toiled and other mechanics were at
-work on the house, the others were busy making a clearance about our
-future abode; for as the land seemed fertile, I was anxious to plant a
-garden and determine whether wheat and other cereals could not be grown
-to advantage."
-
-All Champlain's men were not, however, so innocently engaged. There was
-a traitor in the camp. The story is told by Champlain himself, and by
-the historian Lescarbot. It has been re-told, in his characteristically
-simple and graphic manner, by Francis Parkman.
-
-"Champlain was one morning directing his labourers when Ttu, his pilot,
-approached him with an anxious countenance, and muttered a request to
-speak with him in private. Champlain assenting, they withdrew to the
-neighbouring woods, when the pilot disburdened himself of his secret.
-One Antoine Natel, a locksmith, smitten by conscience or fear, had
-revealed to him a conspiracy to murder his commander and deliver Quebec
-into the hands of the Basques and Spaniards then at Tadoussac. Another
-locksmith, named Duval, was author of the plot, and, with the aid of
-three accomplices, had befooled or frightened nearly all the company
-into taking part in it. Each was assured that he should make his
-fortune, and all were mutually pledged to poniard the first betrayer of
-the secret. The critical point of their enterprise was the killing of
-Champlain. Some were for strangling him, some for raising a false alarm
-in the night and shooting him as he came out from his quarters.
-
-"Having heard the pilot's story, Champlain, remaining in the woods,
-desired his informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring him to the spot.
-Natel soon appeared, trembling with excitement and fear, and a close
-examination left no doubt of the truth of his statement. A small
-vessel, built by Pont-Grav at Tadoussac, had lately arrived, and orders
-were now given that it should anchor close at hand. On board was a
-young man in whom confidence could be placed. Champlain sent him two
-bottles of wine, with a direction to tell the four ringleaders that they
-had been given him by his Basque friends at Tadoussac, and to invite
-them to share the good cheer. They came aboard in the evening, and were
-seized and secured. 'Voyla donc mes galants bien estonnez,' writes
-Champlain.
-
-"It was ten o'clock, and most of the men on shore were asleep. They
-were wakened suddenly, and told of the discovery of the plot and the
-arrest of the ringleaders. Pardon was then promised them, and they were
-dismissed again to their beds, greatly relieved, for they had lived in
-trepidation, each fearing the other. Duval's body, swinging from a
-gibbet, gave wholesome warning to those he had seduced; and his head was
-displayed on a pike, from the highest roof of the buildings, food for
-birds, and a lesson to sedition. His three accomplices were carried by
-Pont-Grav to France, where they made their atonement in the galleys."
-
-Of Champlain's later history, his expedition against the Iroquois, by
-way of the Richelieu River and the lake to which he gave his name, and
-his exploration of the Ottawa, something will be said in later chapters.
-
-The next great event in the history of New France, after the founding of
-Quebec by Champlain, was the coming of the Jesuit missionaries; but
-though their headquarters were at Quebec, the field of their heroic
-labours was for the most part in what now constitute the Province of
-Ontario and the State of New York. Their story does not therefore touch
-directly upon the St. Lawrence, except in so far as that river was their
-road to and from the Iroquois towns and the country of the Hurons.
-Indeed, by the middle of the seventeenth century, the St. Lawrence had
-become the main thoroughfare of New France. A fort had been built at
-the mouth of the Richelieu, a small trading settlement existed at Three
-Rivers, and Maisonneuve had laid the foundations of Montreal. Between
-Quebec and these new centres of population there was more or less
-intercourse, and the river bore up and down the vessels of fur-trader
-and merchant, priest and soldier. The St. Lawrence was the highway of
-commerce, the path of the missionary, the road of war, and the one and
-only means of communication for the scattered colonists. Up stream came
-warlike expeditions against the troublesome Iroquois; and down stream
-came the Iroquois themselves, with increasing insolence, until they
-finally carried their raids down to the very walls of Quebec. The St.
-Lawrence was not safe travelling in those days, for white men or red.
-
-During one of these forays, the Iroquois had captured two settlers, one
-Godefroy and Franois Marguerie, an interpreter, both of Three Rivers.
-When some months later the war party returned to attack Three Rivers,
-they brought the Frenchmen with them, and sent Marguerie to the
-commander of the fort with disgraceful terms. Marguerie urged his people
-to reject the offer, and then, keeping his pledged word even to savages,
-returned to face almost certain torture. Fortunately, reinforcements
-arrived from Quebec in the nick of time, and the Iroquois, finding
-themselves at a disadvantage, consented to the ransom of their
-prisoners.
-
-In this same year, 1641, a little fleet which had set forth from
-Rochelle some weeks before dropped anchor at Quebec, and from the ships
-landed Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, with a party of
-enthusiasts destined to found a religious settlement on the island of
-Montreal. They were coldly received by the Governor and people of
-Quebec, who were too weak themselves to care to see the tide of
-population diverted to a new settlement far up the river. Maisonneuve,
-however, turned a deaf ear to all their arguments. "I have not come
-here," he said, "to deliberate, but to act. It is my duty and my honour
-to found a colony at Montreal; and I would go, if every tree were an
-Iroquois!"
-
-In May of the following year the expedition set forth for Montreal.
-With Maisonneuve went two women, whose names were to be closely
-associated with the early history of Montreal--Jeanne Mance and Madame
-de la Peltrie. The Governor, Montmagny, making a virtue of necessity,
-also accompanied the expedition. A more willing companion was Father
-Vimont, Superior of the missions.
-
-It was the seventeenth of the month when the odd little flotilla--a
-pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft driven by sails, and a couple of
-row-boats--approached their destination. The following day they landed
-at what was afterwards known as Point Callire. The scene is best
-described in the words of Parkman:
-
-"Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on his knees. His followers
-imitated his example; and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs
-of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An
-altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle
-Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte Barr,
-decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders.
-Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont, in
-the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their
-servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a
-warlike figure, erect and tall, his men clustering around him--soldiers,
-sailors, artisans, and labourers--all alike soldiers at need. They
-kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the
-rite was over, the priest turned and addressed them: 'You are a grain of
-mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its branches overshadow the
-earth. You are few, but your work is the work of God. His smile is on
-you, and your children shall fill the land.'
-
-"The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and
-twilight came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow.
-They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung
-them before the altar, where the Host remained exposed. Then they
-pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their
-guards, and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal."
-
-Farther down the St. Lawrence, near the mouth of the Richelieu, stood
-the fortified home of the Seigneur de la Verchres. This little fort
-was from its position peculiarly exposed to the attacks of the Iroquois.
-Yet men must live, whatever the risks might be. Urgent business called
-the Seigneur to Quebec. Perhaps nothing had been seen or heard of the
-dreaded scourge in the neighbourhood for some time. At any rate,
-whether from a sense of fancied security, or from necessity which must
-sometimes ignore danger, most of the men were working in the fields, at
-some distance from the fort. Suddenly there was a cry, "The Iroquois!"
-Madeleine, the fourteen-year-old daughter of the Seigneur, was at the
-gate. She called in some women who were near at hand, and barred the
-entrance. Two soldiers were in the fort, but they were paralysed with
-fear. Madeleine took charge, shamed the soldiers into at least a
-semblance of manhood, set every one to work to repair the defences, and
-set up dummies upon the walls to deceive the Indians into the belief
-that the fort was well garrisoned. She armed her two young brothers,
-twelve and ten years of age, and an old man of eighty, and carried out
-the deception by a ceaseless patrol throughout the night.
-
-Meanwhile the men in the fields had escaped, and were on their way to
-Montreal for assistance. But Montreal was far off in those days, and
-the relief was slow in coming. The next day, and the next, Madeleine, by
-her own heroic will, kept up the spirits of her little garrison, and
-they made such good use of their guns that the Iroquois dared not come
-to close quarters. When day followed day without the appearance of the
-hoped-for succour, the plucky girl had to struggle with desperate energy
-to maintain the defence. She herself took no rest, but went from place
-to place, cheering the flagging spirits of her brothers, and foiling the
-enemy at every turn. At last, when a full week had gone by, the relief
-party arrived from Montreal, and at their appearance the Iroquois
-hastily withdrew. The men had expected to find the fort in ruins; they
-were agreeably surprised to find all safe; but their amazement knew no
-bounds when the gate was opened and they discovered what manner of
-garrison it was that had held at bay for a week a strong party of the
-ferocious Iroquois.
-
-One might fill many pages with such stories as these, for the early
-history of the Great River of Canada, and of the settlements that grew
-up along its banks, is packed with romantic incidents and dramatic
-situations. These must, however, be left to other hands if we are to
-find space for the stories of other Canadian streams.
-
-
-
-
- II
-
-
- THE MYSTIC SAGUENAY
-
-
- Pile on pile
- The granite masses rise to left and right;
- Bald, stately bluffs that never wear a smile....
- And we must pass a thousand bluffs like these,
- Within whose breasts are locked a myriad mysteries.
- SANGSTER.
-
-
-
-The Saguenay is first heard of in the narrative of Cartier's second
-voyage. On his way to Canada, the realm of the Iroquois sachem,
-Donnacona, he came, early in September 1535, to the mouth of a great
-river flowing into the St. Lawrence from the west. His native guides
-told him that this river, whose gloomy majesty was to be the theme of
-many later travellers, was the main road to the "kingdom of Saguenay."
-One may well believe that the adventurous captain of St. Malo would
-gladly have turned his ships between the towering portals of the
-Saguenay, for the pure joy of discovery, had not a greater project lured
-him toward the south-west.
-
-While his vessels were anchored off the mouth of the river, his
-attention was drawn to a curious fish "which no man had ever before seen
-or heard of." The Indians called them adhothuys, and told him that they
-were found only in such places as this, where the waters of sea and
-river mingled. Cartier says they were as large as porpoises, had the
-head and body of a greyhound, and were as white as snow and without a
-spot. These white porpoises, as they are now called, are still found at
-the mouth of the Saguenay. At one time their capture formed an
-important part of the fisheries of Tadoussac.
-
-There is a romantic tradition that de Roberval sailed up the Saguenay
-with a company of adventurers, about the year 1549, in search of a
-kingdom of fabulous riches, and that he and his men perished on the way.
-It is probable, however, that the expedition had as little foundation as
-the kingdom it was designed to exploit.
-
-Half a century later the first settlement was made at Tadoussac, at the
-mouth of the Saguenay. For many years this had been a meeting-place for
-the Basque traders and the Indians from the interior, but it was not
-until the year 1600 that anything in the nature of a permanent post had
-been established. In that year Pierre de Chauvin, Pont-Grav, and de
-Monts, sailed for the St. Lawrence, built a house at Tadoussac, and left
-sixteen men there for the winter to carry on the fur-trade. The venture
-was not a success, and the place was abandoned the following year, but
-Tadoussac remained for many years an important point in the fur-trade.
-It is said that in 1648 the traffic amounted to 250,000 livres. A
-church built here by the missionaries a hundred years later is still
-standing. Tadoussac is chiefly known to-day as one of the favourite
-watering-places on the Lower St. Lawrence.
-
-It was not until three years after de Chauvin built his trading-post at
-Tadoussac that the Saguenay was actually explored. Champlain and
-Pont-Grav had sailed from Honfleur, in March 1603, on the
-_Bonne-Renomme_, to explore the country and find some more suitable
-place than Tadoussac for a permanent settlement. After meeting a number
-of friendly Indians at Tadoussac, Champlain determined to explore the
-Saguenay, and actually sailed up to the head of navigation, a little
-above the present town of Chicoutimi. By shrewd questions he learned
-from the Indians that above the rapids the river was navigable for some
-distance, that it was again broken by rapids at its outlet from a big
-lake (Lake St. John), that three rivers fell into this lake, and that
-beyond these rivers were strange tribes who lived on the borders of the
-sea. This sea was the great bay, as yet undiscovered, where Henry
-Hudson was seven years later to win an imperishable name, and die a
-victim to the treachery of his crew.
-
-In 1608 Champlain again visited Tadoussac, on his way up the St.
-Lawrence to lay the foundations of Quebec. His companion, Pont-Grav,
-had arrived in another vessel a few days before, armed with the King's
-commission granting him a monopoly of the fur-trade for one year. When
-he reached Tadoussac he found the enterprising Basques already on the
-ground, and carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians. They treated
-the royal letters with contempt, ridiculed Pont-Grav's monopoly, and,
-finally boarding his ship, carried off his guns and ammunition. The
-opportune arrival of Champlain, however, brought them to terms, and they
-finally agreed to return to their legitimate occupation of catching
-whales, leaving the fur-trade, for a time at least, to Pont-Grav and
-Champlain.
-
-The Indians who chiefly frequented Tadoussac at this time were of the
-tribe called Montagnais. Their hunting-ground was the country drained
-by the Saguenay, and they acted as middlemen for the tribes of the far
-north, bringing their furs down to the French at Tadoussac, and carrying
-back the prized trinkets of the white man, which they no doubt bartered
-to their northerly neighbours at an exorbitant profit.
-
-"Indefatigable canoe-men," says Parkman, "in their birchen vessels,
-light as egg-shells, they threaded the devious tracks of countless
-rippling streams, shady by-ways of the forest, where the wild duck
-scarcely finds depth to swim; then descended to their mart along those
-scenes of picturesque yet dreary grandeur which steam has made familiar
-to modern tourists. With slowly moving paddles, they glided beneath the
-cliff whose shaggy brows frown across the zenith, and whose base the
-deep waves wash with a hoarse and hollow cadence; and they passed the
-sepulchral Bay of the Trinity, dark as the tide of Acheron,--a sanctuary
-of solitude and silence: depths which, as the fable runs, no
-sounding-line can fathom, and heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling
-eagle seems a speck."
-
-Fifty-eight years after Champlain's voyage up the Saguenay, two Jesuit
-missionaries, Claude Dablon and Gabriel Druillettes, set forth from
-Tadoussac with a large party of Indians in forty canoes. Their object
-was to meet the northern Indians at Lake Nekouba, near the height of
-land, and if possible push on to Hudson Bay. It is clear from their
-narrative that French traders or missionaries had already ascended the
-Saguenay as far as Lake St. John, but beyond that Dablon and Druillettes
-entered upon a country which was hitherto unknown to the French. After
-suffering great hardships, the party at last arrived at Lake Nekouba,
-where they found a large gathering of Indians, representing many of the
-surrounding tribes. But while the missionaries were addressing the
-Indians, word came that a war party of Mohawks had penetrated even to
-these remote fastnesses. So overpowering was the dread which these
-redoubtable warriors had inspired among all the tribes of North-eastern
-America, that the gathering broke up in confusion. Every man made off
-to his own home, hoping that he might not meet an Iroquois at the
-portage; and as the Indians of Father Dablon's party were as
-fear-stricken as the rest, all idea of continuing the journey to Hudson
-Bay had to be abandoned, and the missionaries were obliged to retrace
-their steps to Tadoussac.
-
-A decade later, another missionary, Father Albanel, with a Colonial
-officer, Denys de Saint Simon, were more fortunate. Following Dablon's
-route to the height of land, they pushed on to Lake Mistassini, and
-descended Rupert's River to Hudson Bay, where they found a small vessel
-flying the English flag, and two houses, but the English themselves were
-apparently away on some trading expedition.
-
-The Jesuit missionaries seemed to have discovered at an early date the
-advantages of Lake St. John as the site of one of their missions. In
-1808 the ruins of their settlement were still visible on the south side
-of the lake. James McKenzie, of the North-West Company, who visited the
-"King's Posts" in that year, says that "the plum and apple trees of
-their garden, grown wild through want of care, yet bear fruit in
-abundance. The foundation of their church and other buildings, as well
-as the churchyard, are still visible. The bell of their church, two
-iron spades, a horseshoe, a scythe and a bar of iron two feet in length,
-have lately been dug out of the ruins of this apparently once
-flourishing spot, and, adjoining, is an extensive plain or meadow on
-which much timothy hay grows." Elsewhere Mr. McKenzie mentions that the
-Fathers had mills on Lake St. John, some of the materials used in their
-construction having been found there by officers of the North-West
-Company. He adds that an island in the lake, not far from where the
-mission formerly stood, swarms with snakes, which a local tradition
-credited to the power of the worthy Jesuits. The Fathers found them
-inconveniently numerous about their settlement, and conjured them on to
-the island.
-
-A settlement of some kind was made at Chicoutimi, on the Saguenay, early
-in the eighteenth century. A chapel and store, still standing in 1808,
-bore an inscription that they had been built in 1707. Father Coquart
-records that in 1750 there was a saw-mill on the River Oupaoutiche, one
-and a half leagues above Chicoutimi, which worked two saws night and
-day.
-
-
-
-
- III
-
-
- THE RIVER OF ACADIA
-
-
- Along my fathers' dykes I roam again,
- Among the willows by the river-side.
- These miles of green I know from hill to tide,
- And every creek and river's ruddy stain.
- Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain.
- Here, where a people's dearest hope has died,
- Alone of all their children scattered wide,
- I scan the sad memorials that remain.
- HERBIN.
-
-
-
-Some time about the middle of the seventeenth century, an Acadian,
-sailing perhaps from Port Royal in search of peltries or of mere
-adventure, brought his little vessel by great good luck safely through
-that treacherous channel, guarded at one end by Cape Split and at the
-other by the frowning crest of Blomidon, and found himself upon the
-placid waters of the Basin of Minas. Champlain had sailed across the
-mouth of the basin in 1604, and had called it the Port des Mines,
-because of certain copper-mines which he had been led to expect there.
-This Acadian found something better than copper-mines. Safely past
-Blomidon, he came to a land which nature seemed to have set apart as the
-home of an industrious and peace-loving people. Somewhere about the
-mouth of the Gaspereau he built his home. Others followed, and in time
-a long, straggling village grew up; willows were planted, which stand
-to-day as a memorial of this Acadian colony; and after years of toil
-they completed that still more impressive monument of Acadian industry,
-the "long ramparts of their dykes," by which they fenced out the sea
-from the rich and fertile lowlands, and turned these once tide-swept
-flats into green meadows.
-
-The Gaspereau country must have been beautiful enough when the Acadians
-first came to make their home there, but in the years of their
-occupation they gave to the landscape, quite unconsciously no doubt,
-certain subtle touches that turned it into something little less than an
-earthly paradise. Standing upon the ridge and looking down into the
-valley of the Gaspereau, one sees a scene that it not very materially
-changed from the days of the Acadians--after one has eliminated such
-modern excrescences as railways and bridges. The village of Grand Pr
-would have to be rearranged, no doubt. There was less of it in the first
-half of the eighteenth century; it did not cover quite the same ground;
-but no doubt a traveller who came that way in 1750 would have seen in
-the vale beneath many such picturesque cottages embowered in the
-self-same trees, and the rest of the scene would have been much the same
-as he would see to-day. Charles Roberts, the Canadian poet, novelist,
-and historian, has made a word-picture of it. "The picture is an
-exquisite pastoral. Among such deep fields, such billowy groves, and
-such embosomed farmsteads might Theocritus have wrought his idylls to
-the hum of the heavy bees. Along the bottom of the sun-brimmed vale
-sparkles the river, between its banks of wild rose and convolvulus, with
-here and there a clump of grey-green willows, here and there a
-red-and-white bridge. As it nears its mouth the Gaspereau changes its
-aspect. Its complexion of clear amber grows yellow and opaque as it
-mixes with the uprushing tides of Minas, and its widened channel winds
-through a riband of dyked marshes."
-
-This is the valley of the Gaspereau, one of the most beautiful spots in
-the beautiful province of Nova Scotia. This, too, in that far-off
-autumn of 1755, was the scene of one of the most pathetic and tragic
-incidents in the history of America. It would serve no useful purpose
-to discuss that much-debated question of the whys and wherefores of the
-expulsion of the Acadians. The story of the actual tragedy is all we
-have space for here. That story is alone sufficient to make the
-Gaspereau famous among rivers of Canada, and it is best told in the
-language of Francis Parkman. Governor Lawrence had summoned the
-deputies of the Acadian settlements to appear before him at Halifax, to
-take the oath of allegiance and fidelity. They came, but flatly refused
-to take the oath. The Governor and Council thereupon decided that the
-only thing that remained to be done was to deport them from the colony.
-John Winslow, a Colonial officer from Massachusetts, was charged with
-the duty of securing the inhabitants about the Basin of Minas. On
-August 14, 1755, he set forth from his camp at Fort Beausejour, with a
-force of but two hundred and ninety-seven men. He sailed down Chignecto
-Channel to the Bay of Fundy. "Here, while they waited the turn of the
-tide to enter the Basin of Minas," says Parkman, "the shores of
-Cumberland lay before them dim in the hot and hazy air, and the
-promontory of Cape Split, like some misshapen monster of primeval chaos,
-stretched its portentous length along the glimmering sea, with head of
-yawning rock, and ridgy back bristled with forests. Borne on the
-rushing flood, they soon drifted through the inlet, glided under the
-rival promontory of Cape Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of
-Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths of the Rivers Canard and Des
-Habitants, where fertile marshes, diked against the tide, sustained a
-numerous and thriving population. Before them spread the boundless
-meadows of Grand Pr, waving with harvests, or alive with grazing
-cattle; the green slopes behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of
-the Acadian farmers, and the spire of the village church rose against a
-background of woody hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to
-become one of the most wretched spots on earth."
-
-After conferring with his brother officer, Murray, who was encamped with
-his men on the banks of the Pisiquid, where the town of Windsor now
-stands, Winslow returned to Grand Pr. The Acadian elders were told to
-remove all sacred things from the village church, and the building was
-then used as a storehouse. The men pitched their tents outside, while
-Winslow took possession of the priest's house. A summons was sent to
-the male inhabitants of the district, over ten years of age, to attend
-at the church in Grand Pr, on the fifth of September, at three of the
-clock in the afternoon, "that we may impart what we are ordered to
-communicate to them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted on any
-pretence whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in
-default."
-
-"On the next day," continues Parkman, "the inhabitants appeared at the
-hour appointed, to the number of four hundred and eighteen men. Winslow
-ordered a table to be set in the middle of the church, and placed on it
-his instructions and the address he had prepared." It ran partly as
-follows: "The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable
-to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who
-are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert on the
-orders I have received, but to obey them; and therefore without
-hesitation I shall deliver to you His Majesty's instructions and
-commands, which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and
-live-stock of all kinds are forfeited to the Crown, with all your other
-effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are
-to be removed from this his province. The peremptory orders of His
-Majesty are that all the French inhabitants of these districts be
-removed; and through His Majesty's goodness I am directed to allow you
-the liberty of carrying with you your money and as many of your
-household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go
-in. I shall do everything in my power that all these goods be secured
-to you, and that you be not molested in carrying them away, and also
-that whole families shall go in the same vessel; so that this removal,
-which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may be made
-as easy as His Majesty's service will admit; and I hope that in whatever
-part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects, and a
-peaceable and happy people."
-
-After weary weeks of delay, which tried Winslow's patience to the
-utmost, the transports at last arrived at the mouth of the Gaspereau,
-and the work of embarkation began. Up to the very last the Acadians
-could not believe that the order of deportation was serious, and when
-they finally realised their fate and knew that they must bid farewell
-for ever to their homes--the homes of their fathers, the land that they
-loved so well--their grief was indescribable. "Began to embark the
-inhabitants," says Winslow in his Diary, "who went off very solentarily
-and unwillingly, the women in great distress, carrying off their
-children in their arms; others carrying their decrepit parents in their
-carts, with all their goods; moving in great confusion, and appeared a
-scene of woe and distress." It was late in December before the last
-transport left the mouth of the Gaspereau. Altogether more than
-twenty-one hundred Acadians were exiled from Grand Pr and the country
-round about. They were distributed along the Atlantic coast, from
-Massachusetts to Georgia. Some made their way to Louisiana; some
-escaped and reached Canada. "Some," says Parkman, "after incredible
-hardship, made their way back to Acadia, where, after the peace, they
-remained unmolested, and, with those who had escaped seizure, became the
-progenitors of the present Acadians, now settled in various parts of the
-British maritime provinces." Few of them, however, returned at any time
-to Grand Pr, and that once thriving settlement remained desolate for
-several years, until at last British families straggled in and took up
-the waste lands of the unfortunate Acadians.
-
-
-
-
- IV
-
-
- THE WAR-PATH OF THE IROQUOIS
-
-
-The story of the Richelieu River is a story of war and conflict. It
-opens just three hundred years ago, when Champlain set out from Quebec
-to join a war-party of Algonquins and Hurons, who had determined to seek
-the Iroquois in their own country, and had begged him to aid in the
-expedition. In consenting to do so, Champlain no doubt felt that he had
-good and sufficient reasons, but if he could have foreseen the
-consequences of his act he would surely have left the Algonquins and
-Iroquois to settle their difficulties in their own way, for from this
-first act of aggression dates the implacable hatred of the Iroquois for
-the French, and a century and more of ferocious raids into every corner
-of the struggling colony.
-
-Champlain, with his little party of French and a horde of naked savages,
-reached the mouth of the Richelieu, or the River of the Iroquois as it
-was then called, about the end of June 1609. The Indians quarrelled
-among themselves, and three-fourths of their number deserted and made
-off for home. The rest continued their course up the waters of the
-Richelieu. When they reached the rapids, above the Basin of Chambly, it
-was found impossible to take the shallop in which the French had
-travelled any farther. Sending most of his men back to Quebec, he
-himself, with two companions, determined to see the adventure through.
-After many days' hard paddling, the flotilla of canoes swept out on to
-the bosom of the noble lake which perpetuates the name of Champlain, and
-in the evening of the twenty-ninth of July they discovered the Iroquois
-in their canoes, near the point of land where Fort Ticonderoga was long
-afterwards built. The Iroquois made for the shore, and as night was
-falling it was mutually agreed to defer the battle until the following
-morning. The Iroquois threw up a barricade, while Champlain and his
-native allies spent the night in their canoes on the lake.
-
-In the morning Champlain and his two men put on light armour, and the
-whole party landed at some distance from the Iroquois. "I saw the enemy
-go out of their barricade," says Champlain, "nearly two hundred in
-number, stout and rugged in appearance. They came at a slow pace
-towards us, with a dignity and assurance which greatly amused me, having
-three chiefs at their head. Our men also advanced in the same order,
-telling me that those who had three large plumes were the chiefs, and
-that I should do what I could to kill them. I promised to do all in my
-power.
-
-"As soon as we had landed, they began to run for some two hundred paces
-towards their enemies, who stood firmly, not having as yet noticed my
-companions, who went into the woods with some savages. Our men began to
-call me with loud cries; and in order to give me a passage-way, they
-opened in two parts, and put me at their head, where I marched some
-twenty paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about thirty
-paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me,
-as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at us, I
-rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the
-three chiefs. With the same shot two fell to the ground, and one of
-their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded my
-musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favourable for
-them, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have heard
-it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois
-were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly killed,
-although they were equipped with armour woven from cotton thread, and
-with wood which was proof against their arrows. This caused great alarm
-among them. As I was loading again, one of my companions fired a shot
-from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a degree that, seeing
-their chiefs dead, they lost courage, and took to flight, abandoning
-their camp and fort, and fleeing into the woods, whither I pursued them,
-killing still more of them. Our savages also killed several, and took
-ten or twelve prisoners. The remainder escaped with the wounded.
-
-"After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great
-quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their
-armour, which they had left behind that they might run better. After
-feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours
-after, with the prisoners."
-
-On the return journey, the Algonquins tied one of the prisoners to a
-stake, and tortured him with such refinement of cruelty as to arouse the
-disgust and resentment of Champlain. Finally, they allowed him to put
-the wretched Iroquois out of his misery with a musket-ball. Arrived at
-the rapids, the Algonquins and Hurons returned to their own country,
-with loud protestations of friendship for Champlain, while the latter
-continued his journey down to Quebec.
-
-If anything remained to heap the cup of Iroquois resentment to the brim,
-it was provided the following year, when Champlain again lent his
-assistance to the Algonquins and Hurons, and, encountering a war-party
-of Iroquois, a hundred strong, near the mouth of the Richelieu, killed
-or captured every one of them. The day was to come when the tables
-would be turned with a vengeance, when the war-cry of the Iroquois would
-be heard under the walls of Montreal and Quebec, and the death of each
-of the hundred warriors avenged a hundredfold.
-
-But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu is not limited to Indian wars,
-or the conflict between Indian and French. In later years it was to
-become the road of war between white and white, between New England and
-New France, and again between the revolted colonists of New England and
-the loyal colonists of Canada. On the very spot where Champlain and his
-Algonquins had defeated the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years later
-another conflict took place, curiously similar in some respects, though
-different enough in others. Again one side fought behind a barricade,
-while the other gallantly rushed to the assault, and again the defeat
-was overwhelming; but there the resemblance ends. Behind the
-impregnable breastwork at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with his three or
-four thousand French; without stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand
-British regulars and Colonial militia. Abercrombie's one and only idea
-was to carry the position by assault, and throughout the long day he
-hurled regiment after regiment up the deadly slope, only to see them
-mown down by hundreds and thousands before the breastwork. Champlain's
-victory was one of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm's was one of
-skill over stupidity.
-
-Seventeen years after the battle of Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more
-became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with
-his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back
-from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led
-up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of
-the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than
-the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton
-successfully defended England's northern colony consisted of
-French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf
-Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the
-Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the
-pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned
-into channels of peaceful commerce.
-
-
-
-
- V
-
-
- THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT
-
-
- That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell
- The seething horrors of its watery hell!
- Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,
- Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep
- The tortured floods, drifting from side to side
- In furious vortices.
- KIRBY.
-
-
-
-Father Louis Hennepin, in his _New Discovery of a Vast Country in
-America_, gives the earliest known description of the river and falls of
-Niagara. "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there is a vast
-and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and
-astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its
-Parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but
-we may as well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this of
-which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet
-with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League
-broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above
-this Descent that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while
-endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able
-to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down
-headlong above Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall is compounded
-of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping
-along the middle of it. The Waters which Fall from this vast height, do
-foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an
-outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the Wind
-blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above
-fifteen Leagues off. The River Niagara having thrown itself down this
-incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues
-together, to the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity: But having
-passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two
-Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac."
-
-This same year, 1678, when Hennepin visited the great falls, La Salle,
-with his lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy with preparations for
-their western explorations, and in these the Niagara River was to play
-an important part. It was about the middle of November when La Motte,
-with Father Hennepin and sixteen men, sailed from Fort Frontenac
-(Kingston) in a little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and the cold of
-the autumn," says Hennepin, "were then very violent, insomuch that our
-crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel. This oblig'd us to keep
-our course on the north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves under the
-coast against the north-west wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in
-great danger, a couple of leagues off shore, where they were obliged to
-lie at anchor all night. The wind coming round to the north-east,
-however, they managed to continue their voyage, and arrived safely at an
-Iroquois village called Tajajagon, where Toronto stands to-day. They
-ran their little ship into the mouth of the Humber, where the Iroquois
-came to barter Indian corn, and gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the
-marvellous inventions of the white men. Contrary winds and trouble with
-the ice kept them there until the fifth of December, when they crossed
-the lake to the mouth of the Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's
-Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine River Niagara, into which
-never any such Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there Te Deum, and
-other prayers, to return our thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous
-voyage." After examining the river as far as Chippewa Creek, La Motte,
-Hennepin and the men set to work to build a cabin, surrounded by
-palisades, two leagues above the mouth of the river. The ground was
-frozen, and hot water had to be used to thaw it out before the stakes
-could be driven in. The Iroquois, who according to Hennepin had been
-very friendly on their arrival at the mouth of the river, presenting
-them with fish, imputing their good fortune in the fisheries to the
-white men, and examining with interest and astonishment the "great
-wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious when they saw the strangers
-building a fortified house on what they considered peculiarly their own
-territory. La Motte and Hennepin went off to the great village of the
-Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to obtain their consent to the building of
-the fort, but without much success. Soon after their departure, La
-Salle and Tonty reached the Seneca village, on their way from Fort
-Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive, or more fortunate than his
-lieutenant, La Salle secured permission not only for the fortified post
-at the mouth of the river, but also for a much more important
-undertaking which he had planned, the building of a vessel at the upper
-end of the Niagara River, to be used in connection with his western
-explorations.
-
-During the winter the necessary material for the _Griffin_, as the new
-vessel was to be called, was carried over the long portage to the mouth
-of Cayuga Creek, above the falls, where a dock was prepared and the keel
-laid. La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin to desire him to
-drive the first bolt, but, as he says, his profession obliged him to
-decline the honour. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty
-to finish the work. The Iroquois, in spite of their agreement with La
-Salle, watched the building of the _Griffin_ with jealous
-dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of Frenchmen in a state of
-constant anxiety. Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the
-neighbouring tribes took the majority of them off, and the work was
-pushed forward with redoubled zeal, so that it might be completed before
-their return. The Indians that remained behind were too few to make an
-open attack, but they did their utmost to prevent the completion of the
-ship. One of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the blacksmith and
-tried to kill him, but was driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin
-navely remarks that this, "together with the reprimand he received from
-me," obliged him to be gone. A native woman warned Tonty that an
-attempt would be made to burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas
-tried to starve the French by refusing to sell them corn, and might have
-succeeded but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters, who kept the
-workmen supplied with game from the surrounding forest. Finally, the
-_Griffin_ was launched, amid the shouts of the French and the yelpings
-of the Indians, who forgot their displeasure in the novel spectacle.
-She was towed up the Niagara, and on the seventh of August, 1679, La
-Salle and his men sailed out over the placid waters of Lake Erie, the
-booming of his cannon announcing the approach of the first ship of the
-upper lakes. In the _Griffin_ La Salle sailed through Lakes Eric, St.
-Clair, and Huron, to Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake Michigan
-to the entrance to Green Bay, where some of his men, sent on ahead, had
-collected a quantity of valuable furs. These he determined to send back
-to Canada, to satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors, while he
-continued his voyage to the Mississippi. The _Griffin_ set sail for
-Niagara on the eighteenth of September. She never reached her
-destination, and her fate has remained one of the mysteries of Canadian
-history.
-
-
-
-
- VI
-
-
- THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
-
-
- Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stain
- Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
- Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
- Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
- Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,
- The pines that brood above the roaring foam
- Of La Montague or Des Erables; thine home
- Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
- Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
- And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.
- The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
- The beryl waters that espouse and take
- Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
- In that great bridal journey to the sea.
- LAMPMAN.
-
-
-
-While Champlain was in Paris, in 1612, a young man, one Nicolas de
-Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year to visit the tribes of the
-Ottawa, reappeared, with a marvellous tale of what he had seen on his
-travels. He had found a great lake, he said, and out of it a river
-flowing north, which he had descended and reached the shores of the sea,
-where he had seen the wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days' travel
-by canoe, said Vignau, would bring one to the shores of his sea.
-Champlain was delighted, and prepared immediately to follow up this
-important discovery. He returned to Canada, and about the end of May
-1613 set out from Montreal with Vignau and three companions. The rest
-of the story is better told in Parkman's words--and Parkman is here at
-his very best.
-
-"All day they plied their paddles, and when the night came they made
-their campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east glowed with
-tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose
-jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven. Beneath
-the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of
-burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling in the face of day, hung
-like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched
-the dead top of the hemlock, and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy
-beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a
-fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a
-dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the
-awakened wilderness.
-
-"The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course.
-Soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth
-floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the
-falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering
-woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the
-Chaudire barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down
-its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude
-with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage."
-
-While the Indians threw an offering into the foam as an offering to the
-Manitou of the cataract, Champlain and his men shouldered their canoes
-and climbed over the long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake of the
-Chaudire, now Lake Des Chnes. Past the Falls of the Chats and a long
-succession of rapids they made their way, until at last, discouraged by
-the difficulties of the river, they took to the woods, and made their
-way through them, tormented by mosquitoes, to the village of Tessouat,
-one of the principal chiefs of the Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to
-his country.
-
-Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes, and a great deal of
-speech-making followed. Champlain asked for men and canoes to conduct
-him to the country of the Nipissings, through whom he hoped to reach the
-North Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked dubious. They had no love
-for the Nipissings, and preferred to keep Champlain among themselves.
-Finally, at his urgent solicitation, they agreed, but as soon as he had
-left the lodge they changed their minds. Champlain returned and
-upbraided them as children who could not hold fast to their word. They
-replied that they feared that he would be lost in the wild north
-country, and among the treacherous Nipissings.
-
-"But," replied Champlain, "this young man, Vignau, has been to their
-country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have
-said."
-
-"Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the
-Nipissings?"
-
-"Yes," he replied, "I have been there,"
-
-"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well
-that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again
-every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been
-when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your
-chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He
-ought to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our
-enemies."
-
-Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but finally broke down and confessed
-his treachery. This "most impudent liar," as Champlain calls him, seems
-to have had no more substantial motive for his outrageous fabrication
-than vanity and the love of notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his
-presence, and in bitter disappointment retraced his steps to Montreal.
-
-From the days of Champlain to the close of the period of French rule,
-and for many years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as the main
-thoroughfare from Montreal to the great west. Up these waters
-generation after generation of fur-traders made their way, their canoes
-laden with goods, to be exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine,
-the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca, for skins brought in by all the
-surrounding tribes. Long before the first settler came to clear the
-forest and make a home for himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed
-to the shouts of French _voyageurs_ and Indian canoe-men, and the gay
-songs of Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling under a hot
-midsummer sun, and many a long and toilsome portage, were lightened by
-the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma boule," or the tender refrain of
-"A la claire fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs became in time a
-link between the old days of the fur-trade and the later period of the
-lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many years ago that one might sit
-on the banks of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings, and, as the
-mighty rafts of logs floated past, catch the familiar refrain, softened
-by distance:
-
- Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
- En roulant ma boule roulant,
- En roulant ma boule.
-
-
-
-
- VII
-
-
- THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
-
-
- But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,
- Unequal to the chase,
- Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,
- No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
- And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,
- The savage shout, and mighty bison tramp
- Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.
- MAIR.
-
-
-
-In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near
-the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake
-Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the
-North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the
-main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of
-white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la
-Vrendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the
-whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Vrendrye and
-his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of
-the Asiliboiles, as La Vrendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees
-with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing
-his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the
-dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Vrendrye
-had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his
-purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the
-discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his
-way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the
-south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers
-behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the
-city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west.
-Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men
-built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this
-outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for
-an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a
-village of Assiniboines on the way, La Vrendrye arrived on the banks of
-the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing
-appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as
-possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne
-in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer
-brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of
-three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded
-astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white
-men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time
-with the Mandans, La Vrendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of
-his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information
-obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects
-of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La
-Vrendrye's later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long
-ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest,
-but lies outside the present subject.
-
-Returning to the Red River of the North, and spanning the interval in
-time to the close of the eighteenth century, we find another party of
-white men making their way up its muddy waters. This "brigade" of
-fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge of a famous Nor'-Wester
-known as Alexander Henry, whose voluminous journals were resurrected
-from the archives of the Library of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago.
-Henry gives us an admirably full picture of the Red River country and
-its human and other inhabitants, as they were in his day. One can see
-the long string of heavily laden canoes as they forced their way slowly
-up the current of the Red River, paddles dipping rhythmically to the
-light-hearted chorus of some old Canadian _chanson_. At night the camp
-is pitched on some comparatively high ground, fires are lighted, kettles
-hung, and the evening meal despatched. Then the men gather about the
-camp-fires, fill their pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story.
-They turn in early, however, for the day's paddling has been long and
-heavy, and they must be off again before daylight on the morrow. So the
-story runs from day to day.
-
-They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine, and Henry notes the ruins of La
-Vrendrye's old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg will appreciate
-his feeling references to the clinging character of the soil about the
-mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain had turned it into a kind of
-mortar that adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every step we raise
-several pounds of it."
-
-These were the days when the buffalo roamed in vast herds throughout the
-great western plains. One gets from Henry's narrative some idea of
-their almost inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red River, the
-country seemed alive with them. The "beach, once a soft black mud into
-which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the
-numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and
-torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in
-places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn
-away." As the brigade nears the point where the international boundary
-crosses the Red River, an immense herd is seen, "commencing about half a
-mile from the camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the
-river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving southward slowly,
-and the meadow seemed as if in motion."
-
-One further glimpse from Henry's Journal will serve to give some idea of
-life on the banks of the Red River at the beginning of the last century.
-Henry is describing the "bustle and noise which attended the
-transportation of _five_ pieces of trading goods" from his own fort to
-one of the branch establishments.
-
-"Antoine Payet, guide and second in command, leads the van, with a cart
-drawn by two horses and loaded with his private baggage, cassettes,
-bags, kettles, etc. Madame Payet follows the cart with a child a year
-old on her back, very merry. Charles Bottineau, with two horses and a
-cart loaded with one and a half packs, his own baggage, and two young
-children, with kettles and other trash hanging on to it. Madame
-Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her back, scolding and tossing it
-about. Joseph Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem and calumet
-in his hand; Madame Dubord follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch
-with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe, with another cart and
-horses, loaded with two pieces of goods and with baggage belonging to
-Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot, and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste
-Brisebois follows with only his gun on his shoulder and a fresh-lighted
-pipe in his mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like Brisebois, with gun
-and pipe, puffing out clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the greatest
-smoker in the North-West, has nothing but pipe and pouch. These three
-fellows, having taken a farewell dram and lighted fresh pipes, go on
-brisk and merry, playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois, with a young
-mare, the property of Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking, an
-old worsted bag (madame's property), some squashes and potatoes, a small
-keg of fresh water, and two young whelps howling. Next goes Livernois'
-young horse, drawing a _travaille_ loaded with his baggage and a large
-worsted _mashguemcate_ belonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears
-Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling a
-_travaille_ loaded with a bag of flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a
-small keg of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel Langlois, who
-is master of the band, now comes on leading a horse that draws a
-_travaille_ nicely covered with a new-painted tent, under which his
-daughter and Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this covering
-or canopy has a pretty effect in the caravan, and appears at a great
-distance in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up the rear of the human
-beings, following the _travaille_ with a slow step and melancholy air,
-attending to the wants of her daughter, who, notwithstanding her
-sickness, can find no other expressions of gratitude to her parents than
-by calling them dogs, fools, beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a
-long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs, some for game, and others
-of no use whatever, except to snarl and destroy meat. The total forms a
-procession nearly a mile long, and appears like a large band of
-Assiniboines."
-
-To the uninitiated, it may be explained that a _cassette_ is a box for
-carrying small articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian pipe; a
-_travaille_ is a primitive species of conveyance, consisting of a couple
-of long poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog, as the case may be,
-and the other trailing on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway hold the
-poles together, and serve as a foundation for whatever load, human or
-otherwise, it is intended to carry. _Mashguemcate_ is a species of bag,
-a general receptacle for odds and ends.
-
-
-
-
- VIII
-
-
- THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE
-
-
- I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land
- Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height,
- Uprearing crests all starry-diademed
- Above the silver clouds.
- LAUT.
-
-
-
-There was a man in the western fur-trade who felt that other things were
-better worth while than the bartering of blankets and beads for
-beaver-skins. His heart responded to the compelling cry of the unknown,
-and one bright June day, in the year 1789, he set forth in quest of
-other worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought
-to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty
-river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and
-outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians,
-whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose
-course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller
-might hope to navigate its waters and live.
-
-Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life,
-listened eagerly to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian character
-to make due allowances for exaggerations; but had all that he heard been
-true, the prospect of danger would only have whetted his appetite for
-exploration. From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, the way
-lay clear, and he launched his canoe, manned by four Canadian
-_voyageurs_, while his Indian interpreters and hunters followed in a
-second. To Great Slave Lake they were on familiar waters, but beyond
-all was conjecture.
-
-To appreciate the magnitude of Mackenzie's undertaking, one must bear in
-mind that his object was to trace the mighty river that afterward bore
-his name to its mouth. He had no certain knowledge where it might
-empty--perhaps into the Arctic, possibly into the Pacific. In any case
-it involved a long journey, with all sorts of possible difficulties,
-human and natural; and as he must travel light, with only a limited
-supply of provisions, it was essential that he should go and return in
-one season--the very short season of these far northern latitudes. The
-natives whom he questioned ridiculed the idea of descending the
-Mackenzie to its outlet and returning the same season. They assured him
-that it would take him the entire season to go down; that winter would
-overtake him before he could begin the return journey; and that he would
-certainly perish of cold or starvation, even if he escaped the hostile
-tribes of the lower waters of the river.
-
-Mackenzie was confident that the journey could be made in the season,
-but to succeed they must travel at top speed. He had picked men with
-him, and it was fortunate that he had, for the pace was almost killing.
-Half-past three in the morning generally saw them in the canoes and off
-for a long day's hard paddling. One day they paddled steadily from
-half-past two in the morning until six in the evening, except short
-stops for meals, covering seventy-two miles in spite of a head wind.
-
-When they reached Great Slave Lake, they found it almost entirely
-covered with ice, though it was now the ninth of June. Coming down Slave
-River they had been tortured with mosquitoes and gnats, and the trees
-along the banks were in full leaf. This violent change was
-characteristic of the north. Five precious days were lost waiting for
-the ice to move, so that they might cross the lake. At last a westerly
-wind opened a passage, and after some perilous adventures they made the
-northern shore. Coasting slowly to the westward, about the end of the
-month they rounded the point of a long island, and Mackenzie found
-himself on the great river. The current increased as they travelled
-down stream, and it was possible to make good progress.
-
-On they went, day after day. July 1st they passed the mouth of what the
-Indians called the River of the Mountain, afterward known as the Liard,
-where Fort Simpson was built many years later. As they proceeded, it
-became clear to Mackenzie that the river down which he was paddling must
-empty into the Arctic--but would it be possible to reach the ocean and
-return to Fort Chipewyan that season? The men were beginning to get
-discouraged, and it required all Mackenzie's enthusiasm and strength of
-purpose to keep them to the strenuous task. The tribes they met as they
-went north--Slaves and Dog-ribs and Hare Indians--did not prove as
-ferocious as they had been represented, but they one and all described
-the dangers of the river below as stupendous. The _voyageurs_ grumbled,
-but did not openly rebel. As for the Indians of Mackenzie's party, they
-were in open terror; expected at every turn of the river to come upon
-some of the fearful monsters of which the Slaves or Dog-ribs had warned
-them, and were only kept from deserting by Mackenzie's overmastering
-will. As they approached the mouth of the river, another terror was
-added--fear of meeting the Eskimos, for Indian and Eskimo were at deadly
-enmity. Altogether, the plucky explorer had troubles enough.
-
-On the second of July he came within sight of the Rocky Mountains, whose
-glistening summits the Indians called _Manetoe aseniah_, or
-spirit-stones, and the following day he camped at the foot of a
-remarkable hill, constantly referred to in the narratives of Sir John
-Franklin, Richardson, and other later explorers, as the "Rock by the
-River Side." There is an admirable drawing of the rock, by Kendall, in
-the narrative of Franklin's second voyage.
-
-A few days later Mackenzie passed the mouth of Bear River, draining that
-huge reservoir, Great Bear Lake, whose discovery remained for later
-explorers to accomplish, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles
-below he came to the Sans Sault Rapids--the fearful waterfall against
-which the natives had warned him. As a matter of fact it can be safely
-navigated at almost any season of the year.
-
-Another thirty miles brought the explorer to the afterward famous
-Ramparts of the Mackenzie. Here the banks suddenly contract to a width
-of five hundred yards, and for several miles the travellers passed
-through a gigantic tunnel, whose walls of limestone rose majestically on
-either side to a height of from one hundred and twenty-five to two
-hundred and fifty feet.
-
-At last they reached the delta of the river, and it was well that they
-were so near their destination, for the Indians were thoroughly
-demoralised and the _voyageurs_ dispirited, provisions were running
-perilously low, and the short northern summer was rapidly drawing to its
-close. On July 12th the party emerged from the river into what seemed
-to Mackenzie to be a lake, but which was really the mouth of the river.
-The following day confirmation of this came with the rising tide, which
-very nearly carried off the men's baggage while they slept. Paddling
-over to an island, which he named Whale Island, to commemorate an
-exciting chase after a school of these enormous animals the previous
-day, Mackenzie erected a post, on which he engraved the latitude of the
-spot, his own name, the number of persons he had with him in the
-expedition, and the time spent on the island.
-
-After a fruitless attempt to get in touch with the Eskimo, Mackenzie
-turned his face to the south, and, after a comparatively uneventful
-journey, arrived at Fort Chipewyan on September 12th, after a voyage of
-one hundred and two days. He had explored one of the greatest rivers of
-America, from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic, and he had added to the
-known world a territory greater than Europe. Nor was this all, for
-Mackenzie's journey to the Arctic was but the introduction to his even
-more difficult, and more momentous, expedition of three years later,
-over the mountains to the shores of the Pacific. This, however, does not
-lie within the compass of the present sketch.
-
-
-
-
- BOYLE, SON AND WATCHURST
- PRINTERS,
- 3-5 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.
-
-
-
-
-
-
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+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 38933 ***</div>
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-.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-
-
-.. meta::
- :PG.Id: 38933
- :PG.Title: By Canadian Streams
- :PG.Released: 2012-07-02
- :PG.Rights: Public Domain
- :PG.Producer: Al Haines
- :DC.Creator: Lawrence J. Burpee
- :DC.Title: By Canadian Streams
- :DC.Language: en
- :DC.Created: 1909
- :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg
-
-===================
-BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-===================
-
-.. clearpage::
-
-.. pgheader::
-
-.. container:: coverpage
-
- .. vspace:: 3
-
- .. _`Cover`:
-
- .. figure:: images/img-cover.jpg
- :align: center
- :alt: Cover
-
- Cover
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. container:: titlepage center white-space-pre-line
-
- .. class:: x-large
-
- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-
- .. vspace:: 2
-
- .. class:: medium
-
- BY
-
- .. class:: large
-
- LAWRENCE J. BURPEE
-
- .. vspace:: 4
-
- .. class:: center medium
-
- TORONTO
- THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED
-
- .. vspace:: 4
-
-.. container:: verso center white-space-pre-line
-
- .. class:: center small
-
- *Entered at*
- *Stationers Hall*
- 1909
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- THE RIVERS OF CANADA
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-.. class: left medium
-
-Who that has travelled upon their
-far-spreading waters has not felt the
-compelling charm of the rivers of Canada?
-The matchless variety of their scenery, from
-the gentle grace of the Sissibou to the
-tempestuous grandeur of the Fraser; the
-romance that clings to their shores--legends
-and tales of Micmac and Iroquois, Cree,
-Blackfoot, and Chilcotin; stories of peaceful
-Acadian villages beside the Gaspereau, and
-fortified towns along the St. Lawrence; of
-warlike expeditions and missionary
-enterprises up the Richelieu and the Saguenay;
-of heroic exploits at the Long Sault and at
-Verchères; of memorable explorations in
-the north and the far west? How many of
-us realise the illimitable possibilities of these
-arteries of a nation, their vital importance
-as avenues of commerce and communication,
-the potential energy stored in their rushing
-waters? Do we even appreciate their actual
-extent, or thoroughly grasp the fact that
-this network of waterways covers half a
-continent, and reaches every corner of this
-vast Dominion?
-
-Two hundred years ago little was known
-of these rivers outside the valley of the
-St. Lawrence. One hundred years later
-scores of new waterways had been explored
-from source to outlet, some of them
-ranking among the great rivers of the
-earth. The Western Sea, that had lured
-the restless sons of New France toward the
-setting sun, that had furnished a
-dominating impulse to her explorers, from Jacques
-Cartier to La Vérendrye, was at last reached
-by Canadians of another race--and the road
-that they travelled was the water-road that
-connects three oceans. In their frail canoes
-these tireless pathfinders journeyed up the
-mighty St. Lawrence and its great tributary
-the Ottawa, through Lake Nipissing, and
-down the French river to Georgian Bay;
-they skirted the shores of the inland seas to
-the head of Lake Superior, and by way of
-numberless portages crossed the almost
-indistinguishable height of land to Rainy Lake
-and the beautiful Lake of the Woods. They
-descended the wild Winnipeg to Lake
-Winnipeg, paddled up the Saskatchewan to
-Cumberland House, turned north by way of
-Frog Portage to the Churchill, and ascended
-that waterway to its source, where they
-climbed over Meythe Portage--famous in
-the annals of exploration and the fur trade--to
-the Clearwater, a branch of the Athabaska,
-and so came to Fort Chipewyan, on Lake
-Athabaska. Descending Slave River for a
-few miles, they came to the mouth of Peace
-River, and after many days' weary paddling
-were in sight of the Rocky Mountains. Still
-ascending the same river, they traversed the
-mountains, and by other streams were borne
-down the western slope to the shores of the
-remote Pacific.
-
-The world offers no parallel to this
-extraordinary water-road from the Atlantic to the
-Pacific; nor is the tale all told. From that
-great central reservoir, that master-key to
-the whole system of water communications,
-the traveller might turn his canoe in any
-direction, and traverse the length and
-breadth of the continent to its most remote
-boundaries: east to the Atlantic, west to
-the Pacific, north to the Arctic or to
-Hudson Bay, and south to the Gulf of
-Mexico.
-
-The story of Canadian rivers would fill
-several volumes if one attempted to do
-justice to such a broad and varied theme.
-One may only hope, in the few pages that
-follow, to give glimpses of the story; to
-suggest, however inadequately, the dramatic
-and romantic possibilities of the subject; to
-recall a few of the memories that cling to the
-rivers of Canada.
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- CONTENTS
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-.. class:: left medium
-
-I. `The Great River of Canada`_
-II. `The Mystic Saguenay`_
-III. `The River of Acadia`_
-IV. `The War Path of the Iroquois`_
-V. `The River of the Cataract`_
-VI. `The Highway of the Fur Trade`_
-VII. `The Red River of the North`_
-VIII. `The Mighty Mackenzie`_
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. _`THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA`:
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- By Canadian Streams
-
-.. vspace:: 3
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- I
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-..
-
- | He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
- | Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave;
- | He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
- | What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height,
- | And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
- | And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils over sea.
- | McGEE.
- |
-
-If we abandon ourselves to pure
-conjecture, we may carry the history of
-the St. Lawrence back to the beginning of
-the sixteenth century, when daring
-Portuguese navigators sailed into these northern
-latitudes; or to the latter half of the fifteenth
-century, when the Basque fishermen are said
-to have brought their adventurous little
-craft into the Gulf of St. Lawrence; or, if
-you please, we may push the curtain back
-to the tenth century and add another
-variant to the many theories as to the course
-of the Northmen from Labrador to Nova
-Scotia. But while this would make a
-romantic story, it is not history. The Vikings
-of Northern Europe, and the Portuguese
-and Basques of Southern Europe, *may* have
-sailed the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and *may*
-even have entered the estuary of the great
-river, but there is no evidence that they did,
-and we must surrender these picturesque
-myths if we are to build our story upon a
-tangible foundation.
-
-With the advent of Jacques Cartier, the
-bluff and fearless mariner of St. Malo, we
-are upon the solid ground of history. There
-is nothing vague or uncertain about either
-the personality or achievements of this
-Breton captain. He tells his own story, in
-simple and convincing language. It does
-not require any peculiar gift of imagination
-to picture the scene that marks the
-beginnings of the history of the St. Lawrence.
-It was upon an autumn day, some three
-hundred and seventy-four years since.
-Jacques Cartier, with his little fleet, had
-searched up and down the coasts of the gulf
-for the elusive and much-desired passage to
-the South Seas, but the passage was not
-there. His Indian guides, Taignoagny and
-Domagaya, had told him something of the
-mighty stream--the Great River of Canada--upon
-whose waters his ships were even
-now sailing. How almost incredible it must
-have seemed to him that this vast channel,
-twenty-five miles across from shore to shore,
-could be a river, and nothing more! What
-thoughts must have surged through his brain
-that here at last was the long-sought passage,
-the road to golden Cathay! Even when, as
-he sailed onward, it became certain that this
-was indeed a river, although a gigantic one,
-Jacques Cartier still had reason enough to
-follow its beckoning finger. The Indians
-said that to explore its upper waters he
-must take to his boats; but they told him
-of three several native kingdoms that lay
-along its banks, and they assured him
-that its source was so remote that no man
-had ever journeyed so far. Moreover, it
-came from the south-west, and there lay,
-and at no impossible distance, as report had
-it, the Vermilion Sea. He might well hope
-to reach that sea by way of the River of
-Canada. In any event, he determined to try.
-
-A week later the ships were anchored off
-an island, which Cartier named the Isle of
-Bacchus, because of the abundance of grapes
-found upon its shores. Before him rose the
-forest-clad heights of Cape Diamond,
-destined to become the key to a Colonial empire,
-the battling-ground of three great nations,
-the site of the most picturesque and most
-romantic city of America. Even at this
-time the place was of some importance, for
-here stood the native town of Stadacona, the
-seat of Donnacona, "Lord of Canada."
-
-While the ships rode at anchor, Donnacona
-came down the river with twelve canoes and
-a number of his people. His welcoming
-harangue astonished Cartier, as much by its
-inordinate length as by the extraordinary
-animation with which it was delivered.
-The explorer wasted no time, however, in
-ceremonies. The season was drawing on,
-and much remained to be accomplished.
-Finding safe quarters for two of his vessels
-in the St. Charles River he continued his
-voyage in the third, in spite of the
-opposition of Donnacona and his people, who with
-true native jealousy would have prevented
-his further progress. The ship had to be
-left behind at the mouth of the Richelieu,
-but with two boats, manned by some of
-his sailors, Cartier pushed on to the third
-native kingdom, Hochelaga, which he
-reached about the beginning of October.
-His reception here was embarrassing in its
-enthusiasm, for the people of Hochelaga
-testified their faith in the godlike character
-of their visitor by bringing the sick and the
-maimed to him to be healed by his touch.
-
-Climbing the mountain behind the Indian
-town--which still bears the name he then
-gave it of Mont Royal--Cartier eagerly
-scanned the country to the westward. He
-could trace the St. Lawrence on one side,
-and on the other saw for the first time its
-great tributary the Ottawa. The way was
-still open, but rapids barred the further
-progress of his boats. It was too late to do
-anything more this season, and, taking leave
-of the friendly people of Hochelaga, he
-returned down the river to Stadacona, where
-in his absence his men had built a substantial
-fort for the winter. With all their
-preparations, however, a wretched winter was
-passed. The Indians, at first friendly,
-became distrustful under the treacherous
-influence of Domagaya and Taignoagny, and
-kept Cartier and his men constantly on guard
-against a possible attack. Added to this, the
-little garrison had to endure the horrors of
-scurvy. When in the following May Cartier
-made ready to sail back to France, he found
-it necessary to abandon one of his ships and
-distribute the men between the other two
-vessels. As some satisfaction for the
-annoyance he had suffered at the hands of the
-Indians, Cartier succeeded in carrying away
-to France not only the troublesome Taignoagny
-and several of his companions, but
-also the chief, Donnacona.
-
-Cartier sailed for Canada once more in
-1541, but only fragmentary accounts are
-available of this voyage. The honest captain
-of St. Malo never succeeded in finding the
-Vermilion Sea, but he had accomplished
-what was of more importance to future
-generations--the discovery and exploration
-of the noblest of Canadian rivers. No one
-who came after him could add anything
-material to this momentous achievement.
-
-For more than half a century after
-Cartier's final return to France, the
-St. Lawrence was practically abandoned to its
-native tribes. In 1608, however, another
-famous son of Old France sailed up the
-St. Lawrence and landed with his men at
-the foot of the same towering rock upon
-which the Indian town of Stadacona had
-formerly stood. Nothing now remained of
-Donnacona's capital, or of the tribe that
-once occupied the district. The Iroquois,
-who in Cartier's day dwelt along the
-borders of the St. Lawrence from Stadacona
-to Hochelaga, had for some unaccountable
-reason abandoned this part of the country,
-and were now settled between Lake
-Champlain and Lake Ontario. Champlain and
-those who came after him were to find a
-very different welcome from the descendants
-of the Indians who had welcomed Jacques
-Cartier to Stadacona and Hochelaga.
-
-Somewhere near the market-place of the
-Lower Town, Champlain's men fell to work
-to lay the foundations of Quebec. One may
-get some idea of the appearance of the group
-of buildings, Champlain's *Abitation*, from
-his own rough sketch in the *Voyages*. "My
-first care," he says, "was to build a house
-within which to store our provisions. This
-was promptly and competently done through
-the activity of my men, and under my own
-supervision. Near by is the St. Croix River,
-where of yore Cartier spent a winter. While
-carpenters toiled and other mechanics were
-at work on the house, the others were busy
-making a clearance about our future abode;
-for as the land seemed fertile, I was anxious
-to plant a garden and determine whether
-wheat and other cereals could not be grown
-to advantage."
-
-All Champlain's men were not, however,
-so innocently engaged. There was a traitor
-in the camp. The story is told by Champlain
-himself, and by the historian Lescarbot. It has
-been re-told, in his characteristically simple
-and graphic manner, by Francis Parkman.
-
-"Champlain was one morning directing
-his labourers when Têtu, his pilot,
-approached him with an anxious countenance,
-and muttered a request to speak with him
-in private. Champlain assenting, they
-withdrew to the neighbouring woods, when the
-pilot disburdened himself of his secret. One
-Antoine Natel, a locksmith, smitten by
-conscience or fear, had revealed to him a
-conspiracy to murder his commander and
-deliver Quebec into the hands of the Basques
-and Spaniards then at Tadoussac. Another
-locksmith, named Duval, was author of
-the plot, and, with the aid of three
-accomplices, had befooled or frightened nearly all
-the company into taking part in it. Each
-was assured that he should make his fortune,
-and all were mutually pledged to poniard
-the first betrayer of the secret. The critical
-point of their enterprise was the killing of
-Champlain. Some were for strangling him,
-some for raising a false alarm in the night
-and shooting him as he came out from his
-quarters.
-
-"Having heard the pilot's story, Champlain,
-remaining in the woods, desired his
-informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring
-him to the spot. Natel soon appeared,
-trembling with excitement and fear, and a
-close examination left no doubt of the truth
-of his statement. A small vessel, built by
-Pont-Gravé at Tadoussac, had lately arrived,
-and orders were now given that it should
-anchor close at hand. On board was a
-young man in whom confidence could be
-placed. Champlain sent him two bottles of
-wine, with a direction to tell the four
-ringleaders that they had been given him by his
-Basque friends at Tadoussac, and to invite
-them to share the good cheer. They came
-aboard in the evening, and were seized and
-secured. 'Voyla donc mes galants bien
-estonnez,' writes Champlain.
-
-"It was ten o'clock, and most of the men
-on shore were asleep. They were wakened
-suddenly, and told of the discovery of the
-plot and the arrest of the ringleaders.
-Pardon was then promised them, and they
-were dismissed again to their beds, greatly
-relieved, for they had lived in trepidation,
-each fearing the other. Duval's body,
-swinging from a gibbet, gave wholesome
-warning to those he had seduced; and his
-head was displayed on a pike, from the
-highest roof of the buildings, food for birds,
-and a lesson to sedition. His three
-accomplices were carried by Pont-Gravé to France,
-where they made their atonement in the
-galleys."
-
-Of Champlain's later history, his
-expedition against the Iroquois, by way of the
-Richelieu River and the lake to which he
-gave his name, and his exploration of the
-Ottawa, something will be said in later
-chapters.
-
-The next great event in the history of
-New France, after the founding of Quebec
-by Champlain, was the coming of the Jesuit
-missionaries; but though their headquarters
-were at Quebec, the field of their heroic
-labours was for the most part in what now
-constitute the Province of Ontario and the
-State of New York. Their story does not
-therefore touch directly upon the St. Lawrence,
-except in so far as that river was
-their road to and from the Iroquois towns
-and the country of the Hurons. Indeed,
-by the middle of the seventeenth century,
-the St. Lawrence had become the main
-thoroughfare of New France. A fort had
-been built at the mouth of the Richelieu, a
-small trading settlement existed at Three
-Rivers, and Maisonneuve had laid the
-foundations of Montreal. Between Quebec
-and these new centres of population there
-was more or less intercourse, and the river
-bore up and down the vessels of fur-trader
-and merchant, priest and soldier. The
-St. Lawrence was the highway of commerce,
-the path of the missionary, the road of war,
-and the one and only means of communication
-for the scattered colonists. Up stream
-came warlike expeditions against the troublesome
-Iroquois; and down stream came the
-Iroquois themselves, with increasing
-insolence, until they finally carried their raids
-down to the very walls of Quebec. The
-St. Lawrence was not safe travelling in those
-days, for white men or red.
-
-During one of these forays, the Iroquois
-had captured two settlers, one Godefroy and
-François Marguerie, an interpreter, both of
-Three Rivers. When some months later
-the war party returned to attack Three
-Rivers, they brought the Frenchmen with
-them, and sent Marguerie to the commander
-of the fort with disgraceful terms.
-Marguerie urged his people to reject the offer,
-and then, keeping his pledged word even to
-savages, returned to face almost certain
-torture. Fortunately, reinforcements arrived
-from Quebec in the nick of time, and the
-Iroquois, finding themselves at a disadvantage,
-consented to the ransom of their prisoners.
-
-In this same year, 1641, a little fleet which
-had set forth from Rochelle some weeks
-before dropped anchor at Quebec, and from
-the ships landed Paul de Chomedey, Sieur
-de Maisonneuve, with a party of enthusiasts
-destined to found a religious settlement on
-the island of Montreal. They were coldly
-received by the Governor and people of
-Quebec, who were too weak themselves to
-care to see the tide of population diverted
-to a new settlement far up the river.
-Maisonneuve, however, turned a deaf ear to
-all their arguments. "I have not come
-here," he said, "to deliberate, but to act.
-It is my duty and my honour to found a
-colony at Montreal; and I would go, if
-every tree were an Iroquois!"
-
-In May of the following year the expedition
-set forth for Montreal. With Maisonneuve
-went two women, whose names were
-to be closely associated with the early history
-of Montreal--Jeanne Mance and Madame
-de la Peltrie. The Governor, Montmagny,
-making a virtue of necessity, also
-accompanied the expedition. A more willing
-companion was Father Vimont, Superior of
-the missions.
-
-It was the seventeenth of the month when
-the odd little flotilla--a pinnace, a
-flat-bottomed craft driven by sails, and a couple
-of row-boats--approached their destination.
-The following day they landed at what was
-afterwards known as Point Callière. The
-scene is best described in the words of
-Parkman:
-
-"Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on
-his knees. His followers imitated his
-example; and all joined their voices in
-enthusiastic songs of thanksgiving. Tents,
-baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An altar
-was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand;
-and Mademoiselle Mance, with Madame de
-la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte
-Barré, decorated it with a taste which was
-the admiration of the beholders. Now all
-the company gathered before the shrine.
-Here stood Vimont, in the rich vestments
-of his office. Here were the two ladies with
-their servant; Montmagny, no very willing
-spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike
-figure, erect and tall, his men clustering
-around him--soldiers, sailors, artisans, and
-labourers--all alike soldiers at need. They
-kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was
-raised aloft; and when the rite was over,
-the priest turned and addressed them:
-'You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall
-rise and grow till its branches overshadow
-the earth. You are few, but your work is
-the work of God. His smile is on you, and
-your children shall fill the land.'
-
-"The afternoon waned; the sun sank
-behind the western forest, and twilight came
-on. Fireflies were twinkling over the
-darkened meadow. They caught them, tied
-them with threads into shining festoons,
-and hung them before the altar, where the
-Host remained exposed. Then they pitched
-their tents, lighted their bivouac fires,
-stationed their guards, and lay down to rest.
-Such was the birth-night of Montreal."
-
-Farther down the St. Lawrence, near the
-mouth of the Richelieu, stood the fortified
-home of the Seigneur de la Verchères. This
-little fort was from its position peculiarly
-exposed to the attacks of the Iroquois. Yet
-men must live, whatever the risks might be.
-Urgent business called the Seigneur to
-Quebec. Perhaps nothing had been seen or
-heard of the dreaded scourge in the
-neighbourhood for some time. At any rate,
-whether from a sense of fancied security, or
-from necessity which must sometimes ignore
-danger, most of the men were working in
-the fields, at some distance from the fort.
-Suddenly there was a cry, "The Iroquois!" Madeleine,
-the fourteen-year-old daughter
-of the Seigneur, was at the gate. She called
-in some women who were near at hand, and
-barred the entrance. Two soldiers were in
-the fort, but they were paralysed with fear.
-Madeleine took charge, shamed the soldiers
-into at least a semblance of manhood, set
-every one to work to repair the defences, and
-set up dummies upon the walls to deceive
-the Indians into the belief that the fort was
-well garrisoned. She armed her two young
-brothers, twelve and ten years of age, and
-an old man of eighty, and carried out the
-deception by a ceaseless patrol throughout
-the night.
-
-Meanwhile the men in the fields had
-escaped, and were on their way to Montreal
-for assistance. But Montreal was far off in
-those days, and the relief was slow in coming.
-The next day, and the next, Madeleine, by
-her own heroic will, kept up the spirits of
-her little garrison, and they made such good
-use of their guns that the Iroquois dared
-not come to close quarters. When day
-followed day without the appearance of
-the hoped-for succour, the plucky girl had
-to struggle with desperate energy to
-maintain the defence. She herself took no rest,
-but went from place to place, cheering the
-flagging spirits of her brothers, and foiling
-the enemy at every turn. At last, when a
-full week had gone by, the relief party
-arrived from Montreal, and at their
-appearance the Iroquois hastily withdrew. The
-men had expected to find the fort in ruins;
-they were agreeably surprised to find all
-safe; but their amazement knew no bounds
-when the gate was opened and they
-discovered what manner of garrison it was
-that had held at bay for a week a strong
-party of the ferocious Iroquois.
-
-One might fill many pages with such
-stories as these, for the early history of the
-Great River of Canada, and of the settlements
-that grew up along its banks, is packed
-with romantic incidents and dramatic
-situations. These must, however, be left to
-other hands if we are to find space for the
-stories of other Canadian streams.
-
-
-
-
-
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-.. _`THE MYSTIC SAGUENAY`:
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- II
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- THE MYSTIC SAGUENAY
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-..
-
- | Pile on pile
- | The granite masses rise to left and right;
- | Bald, stately bluffs that never wear a smile....
- | And we must pass a thousand bluffs like these,
- | Within whose breasts are locked a myriad mysteries.
- | SANGSTER.
- |
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-
-The Saguenay is first heard of in the
-narrative of Cartier's second voyage.
-On his way to Canada, the realm of the
-Iroquois sachem, Donnacona, he came, early
-in September 1535, to the mouth of a great
-river flowing into the St. Lawrence from the
-west. His native guides told him that this
-river, whose gloomy majesty was to be the
-theme of many later travellers, was the main
-road to the "kingdom of Saguenay." One
-may well believe that the adventurous
-captain of St. Malo would gladly have turned
-his ships between the towering portals of
-the Saguenay, for the pure joy of discovery,
-had not a greater project lured him toward
-the south-west.
-
-While his vessels were anchored off the
-mouth of the river, his attention was drawn
-to a curious fish "which no man had ever
-before seen or heard of." The Indians called
-them adhothuys, and told him that they
-were found only in such places as this, where
-the waters of sea and river mingled. Cartier
-says they were as large as porpoises, had the
-head and body of a greyhound, and were as
-white as snow and without a spot. These
-white porpoises, as they are now called,
-are still found at the mouth of the
-Saguenay. At one time their capture
-formed an important part of the fisheries
-of Tadoussac.
-
-There is a romantic tradition that de
-Roberval sailed up the Saguenay with a
-company of adventurers, about the year
-1549, in search of a kingdom of fabulous
-riches, and that he and his men perished on
-the way. It is probable, however, that the
-expedition had as little foundation as the
-kingdom it was designed to exploit.
-
-Half a century later the first settlement
-was made at Tadoussac, at the mouth of
-the Saguenay. For many years this had
-been a meeting-place for the Basque traders
-and the Indians from the interior, but it
-was not until the year 1600 that anything
-in the nature of a permanent post had been
-established. In that year Pierre de Chauvin,
-Pont-Gravé, and de Monts, sailed for the
-St. Lawrence, built a house at Tadoussac,
-and left sixteen men there for the winter
-to carry on the fur-trade. The venture was
-not a success, and the place was abandoned
-the following year, but Tadoussac remained
-for many years an important point in the
-fur-trade. It is said that in 1648 the traffic
-amounted to 250,000 livres. A church built
-here by the missionaries a hundred years later
-is still standing. Tadoussac is chiefly known
-to-day as one of the favourite watering-places
-on the Lower St. Lawrence.
-
-It was not until three years after de
-Chauvin built his trading-post at Tadoussac
-that the Saguenay was actually explored.
-Champlain and Pont-Gravé had sailed from
-Honfleur, in March 1603, on the *Bonne-Renommée*,
-to explore the country and find
-some more suitable place than Tadoussac
-for a permanent settlement. After meeting
-a number of friendly Indians at Tadoussac,
-Champlain determined to explore the
-Saguenay, and actually sailed up to the head
-of navigation, a little above the present town
-of Chicoutimi. By shrewd questions he
-learned from the Indians that above the
-rapids the river was navigable for some
-distance, that it was again broken by rapids
-at its outlet from a big lake (Lake St. John),
-that three rivers fell into this lake, and that
-beyond these rivers were strange tribes who
-lived on the borders of the sea. This sea
-was the great bay, as yet undiscovered,
-where Henry Hudson was seven years later
-to win an imperishable name, and die a
-victim to the treachery of his crew.
-
-In 1608 Champlain again visited Tadoussac,
-on his way up the St. Lawrence to lay
-the foundations of Quebec. His companion,
-Pont-Gravé, had arrived in another vessel
-a few days before, armed with the King's
-commission granting him a monopoly of the
-fur-trade for one year. When he reached
-Tadoussac he found the enterprising Basques
-already on the ground, and carrying on a
-brisk trade with the Indians. They treated
-the royal letters with contempt, ridiculed
-Pont-Gravé's monopoly, and, finally boarding
-his ship, carried off his guns and ammunition.
-The opportune arrival of Champlain,
-however, brought them to terms, and they finally
-agreed to return to their legitimate occupation
-of catching whales, leaving the fur-trade,
-for a time at least, to Pont-Gravé and
-Champlain.
-
-The Indians who chiefly frequented
-Tadoussac at this time were of the tribe called
-Montagnais. Their hunting-ground was the
-country drained by the Saguenay, and they
-acted as middlemen for the tribes of the far
-north, bringing their furs down to the
-French at Tadoussac, and carrying back
-the prized trinkets of the white man, which
-they no doubt bartered to their northerly
-neighbours at an exorbitant profit.
-
-"Indefatigable canoe-men," says Parkman,
-"in their birchen vessels, light as egg-shells,
-they threaded the devious tracks of countless
-rippling streams, shady by-ways of the
-forest, where the wild duck scarcely finds
-depth to swim; then descended to their
-mart along those scenes of picturesque yet
-dreary grandeur which steam has made
-familiar to modern tourists. With slowly
-moving paddles, they glided beneath the
-cliff whose shaggy brows frown across the
-zenith, and whose base the deep waves wash
-with a hoarse and hollow cadence; and they
-passed the sepulchral Bay of the Trinity,
-dark as the tide of Acheron,--a sanctuary of
-solitude and silence: depths which, as the
-fable runs, no sounding-line can fathom, and
-heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling
-eagle seems a speck."
-
-Fifty-eight years after Champlain's voyage
-up the Saguenay, two Jesuit missionaries,
-Claude Dablon and Gabriel Druillettes, set
-forth from Tadoussac with a large party of
-Indians in forty canoes. Their object was
-to meet the northern Indians at Lake
-Nekouba, near the height of land, and if
-possible push on to Hudson Bay. It is clear
-from their narrative that French traders or
-missionaries had already ascended the
-Saguenay as far as Lake St. John, but beyond that
-Dablon and Druillettes entered upon a
-country which was hitherto unknown to the
-French. After suffering great hardships, the
-party at last arrived at Lake Nekouba, where
-they found a large gathering of Indians,
-representing many of the surrounding tribes.
-But while the missionaries were addressing
-the Indians, word came that a war party of
-Mohawks had penetrated even to these
-remote fastnesses. So overpowering was the
-dread which these redoubtable warriors had
-inspired among all the tribes of North-eastern
-America, that the gathering broke
-up in confusion. Every man made off to
-his own home, hoping that he might not
-meet an Iroquois at the portage; and as the
-Indians of Father Dablon's party were as
-fear-stricken as the rest, all idea of
-continuing the journey to Hudson Bay had
-to be abandoned, and the missionaries
-were obliged to retrace their steps to
-Tadoussac.
-
-A decade later, another missionary, Father
-Albanel, with a Colonial officer, Denys de
-Saint Simon, were more fortunate. Following
-Dablon's route to the height of land,
-they pushed on to Lake Mistassini, and
-descended Rupert's River to Hudson Bay,
-where they found a small vessel flying the
-English flag, and two houses, but the English
-themselves were apparently away on some
-trading expedition.
-
-The Jesuit missionaries seemed to have
-discovered at an early date the advantages
-of Lake St. John as the site of one of their
-missions. In 1808 the ruins of their
-settlement were still visible on the south side of
-the lake. James McKenzie, of the North-West
-Company, who visited the "King's
-Posts" in that year, says that "the plum
-and apple trees of their garden, grown wild
-through want of care, yet bear fruit in
-abundance. The foundation of their church
-and other buildings, as well as the churchyard,
-are still visible. The bell of their
-church, two iron spades, a horseshoe, a
-scythe and a bar of iron two feet in length,
-have lately been dug out of the ruins of this
-apparently once flourishing spot, and,
-adjoining, is an extensive plain or meadow on
-which much timothy hay grows." Elsewhere
-Mr. McKenzie mentions that the
-Fathers had mills on Lake St. John, some of
-the materials used in their construction
-having been found there by officers of the
-North-West Company. He adds that an
-island in the lake, not far from where the
-mission formerly stood, swarms with snakes,
-which a local tradition credited to the power
-of the worthy Jesuits. The Fathers found
-them inconveniently numerous about their
-settlement, and conjured them on to the
-island.
-
-A settlement of some kind was made at
-Chicoutimi, on the Saguenay, early in the
-eighteenth century. A chapel and store,
-still standing in 1808, bore an inscription
-that they had been built in 1707. Father
-Coquart records that in 1750 there was a
-saw-mill on the River Oupaouétiche, one
-and a half leagues above Chicoutimi, which
-worked two saws night and day.
-
-
-
-
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-.. _`THE RIVER OF ACADIA`:
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- III
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- THE RIVER OF ACADIA
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-
- | Along my fathers' dykes I roam again,
- | Among the willows by the river-side.
- | These miles of green I know from hill to tide,
- | And every creek and river's ruddy stain.
- | Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain.
- | Here, where a people's dearest hope has died,
- | Alone of all their children scattered wide,
- | I scan the sad memorials that remain.
- | HERBIN.
- |
-
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-
-Some time about the middle of the
-seventeenth century, an Acadian,
-sailing perhaps from Port Royal in search of
-peltries or of mere adventure, brought his
-little vessel by great good luck safely through
-that treacherous channel, guarded at one
-end by Cape Split and at the other by the
-frowning crest of Blomidon, and found
-himself upon the placid waters of the Basin of
-Minas. Champlain had sailed across the
-mouth of the basin in 1604, and had called
-it the Port des Mines, because of certain
-copper-mines which he had been led to
-expect there. This Acadian found
-something better than copper-mines. Safely past
-Blomidon, he came to a land which nature
-seemed to have set apart as the home of an
-industrious and peace-loving people.
-Somewhere about the mouth of the Gaspereau he
-built his home. Others followed, and in
-time a long, straggling village grew up;
-willows were planted, which stand to-day
-as a memorial of this Acadian colony; and
-after years of toil they completed that still
-more impressive monument of Acadian
-industry, the "long ramparts of their dykes,"
-by which they fenced out the sea from the
-rich and fertile lowlands, and turned these
-once tide-swept flats into green meadows.
-
-The Gaspereau country must have been
-beautiful enough when the Acadians first
-came to make their home there, but in the
-years of their occupation they gave to the
-landscape, quite unconsciously no doubt,
-certain subtle touches that turned it into
-something little less than an earthly paradise.
-Standing upon the ridge and looking down
-into the valley of the Gaspereau, one sees a
-scene that it not very materially changed
-from the days of the Acadians--after one
-has eliminated such modern excrescences as
-railways and bridges. The village of Grand
-Pré would have to be rearranged, no doubt.
-There was less of it in the first half of the
-eighteenth century; it did not cover quite
-the same ground; but no doubt a traveller
-who came that way in 1750 would have
-seen in the vale beneath many such picturesque
-cottages embowered in the self-same
-trees, and the rest of the scene would have
-been much the same as he would see to-day.
-Charles Roberts, the Canadian poet, novelist,
-and historian, has made a word-picture of
-it. "The picture is an exquisite pastoral.
-Among such deep fields, such billowy groves,
-and such embosomed farmsteads might
-Theocritus have wrought his idylls to the
-hum of the heavy bees. Along the bottom
-of the sun-brimmed vale sparkles the river,
-between its banks of wild rose and
-convolvulus, with here and there a clump of
-grey-green willows, here and there a
-red-and-white bridge. As it nears its mouth the
-Gaspereau changes its aspect. Its
-complexion of clear amber grows yellow and
-opaque as it mixes with the uprushing tides
-of Minas, and its widened channel winds
-through a riband of dyked marshes."
-
-This is the valley of the Gaspereau, one
-of the most beautiful spots in the beautiful
-province of Nova Scotia. This, too, in that
-far-off autumn of 1755, was the scene of
-one of the most pathetic and tragic incidents
-in the history of America. It would serve
-no useful purpose to discuss that much-debated
-question of the whys and wherefores
-of the expulsion of the Acadians. The
-story of the actual tragedy is all we have
-space for here. That story is alone sufficient
-to make the Gaspereau famous among rivers
-of Canada, and it is best told in the language
-of Francis Parkman. Governor Lawrence
-had summoned the deputies of the Acadian
-settlements to appear before him at Halifax,
-to take the oath of allegiance and fidelity.
-They came, but flatly refused to take the
-oath. The Governor and Council
-thereupon decided that the only thing that
-remained to be done was to deport them
-from the colony. John Winslow, a Colonial
-officer from Massachusetts, was charged with
-the duty of securing the inhabitants about
-the Basin of Minas. On August 14, 1755,
-he set forth from his camp at Fort Beausejour,
-with a force of but two hundred and
-ninety-seven men. He sailed down
-Chignecto Channel to the Bay of Fundy. "Here,
-while they waited the turn of the tide to
-enter the Basin of Minas," says Parkman,
-"the shores of Cumberland lay before them
-dim in the hot and hazy air, and the
-promontory of Cape Split, like some misshapen
-monster of primeval chaos, stretched its
-portentous length along the glimmering sea,
-with head of yawning rock, and ridgy back
-bristled with forests. Borne on the rushing
-flood, they soon drifted through the inlet,
-glided under the rival promontory of Cape
-Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs
-of Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths
-of the Rivers Canard and Des Habitants,
-where fertile marshes, diked against the
-tide, sustained a numerous and thriving
-population. Before them spread the
-boundless meadows of Grand Pré, waving with
-harvests, or alive with grazing cattle; the
-green slopes behind were dotted with the
-simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers,
-and the spire of the village church rose
-against a background of woody hills. It
-was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to
-become one of the most wretched spots on
-earth."
-
-After conferring with his brother officer,
-Murray, who was encamped with his men
-on the banks of the Pisiquid, where the town
-of Windsor now stands, Winslow returned
-to Grand Pré. The Acadian elders were
-told to remove all sacred things from the
-village church, and the building was then
-used as a storehouse. The men pitched
-their tents outside, while Winslow took
-possession of the priest's house. A summons
-was sent to the male inhabitants of the
-district, over ten years of age, to attend at
-the church in Grand Pré, on the fifth of
-September, at three of the clock in the
-afternoon, "that we may impart what we are
-ordered to communicate to them; declaring
-that no excuse will be admitted on any
-pretence whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting
-goods and chattels in default."
-
-"On the next day," continues Parkman,
-"the inhabitants appeared at the hour
-appointed, to the number of four hundred
-and eighteen men. Winslow ordered a table
-to be set in the middle of the church, and
-placed on it his instructions and the address
-he had prepared." It ran partly as follows:
-"The duty I am now upon, though necessary,
-is very disagreeable to my natural make
-and temper, as I know it must be grievous
-to you, who are of the same species. But
-it is not my business to animadvert on the
-orders I have received, but to obey them;
-and therefore without hesitation I shall
-deliver to you His Majesty's instructions
-and commands, which are that your lands
-and tenements and cattle and live-stock of
-all kinds are forfeited to the Crown, with all
-your other effects, except money and
-household goods, and that you yourselves are to
-be removed from this his province. The
-peremptory orders of His Majesty are that
-all the French inhabitants of these districts
-be removed; and through His Majesty's
-goodness I am directed to allow you the
-liberty of carrying with you your money
-and as many of your household goods as
-you can take without overloading the vessels
-you go in. I shall do everything in my
-power that all these goods be secured to
-you, and that you be not molested in carrying
-them away, and also that whole families shall
-go in the same vessel; so that this removal,
-which I am sensible must give you a great
-deal of trouble, may be made as easy as
-His Majesty's service will admit; and I
-hope that in whatever part of the world
-your lot may fall, you may be faithful
-subjects, and a peaceable and happy people."
-
-After weary weeks of delay, which tried
-Winslow's patience to the utmost, the
-transports at last arrived at the mouth of the
-Gaspereau, and the work of embarkation
-began. Up to the very last the Acadians
-could not believe that the order of deportation
-was serious, and when they finally
-realised their fate and knew that they must
-bid farewell for ever to their homes--the
-homes of their fathers, the land that they
-loved so well--their grief was indescribable.
-"Began to embark the inhabitants," says
-Winslow in his Diary, "who went off very
-solentarily and unwillingly, the women in
-great distress, carrying off their children in
-their arms; others carrying their decrepit
-parents in their carts, with all their goods;
-moving in great confusion, and appeared a
-scene of woe and distress." It was late in
-December before the last transport left the
-mouth of the Gaspereau. Altogether more
-than twenty-one hundred Acadians were
-exiled from Grand Pré and the country
-round about. They were distributed along
-the Atlantic coast, from Massachusetts to
-Georgia. Some made their way to
-Louisiana; some escaped and reached Canada.
-"Some," says Parkman, "after incredible
-hardship, made their way back to Acadia,
-where, after the peace, they remained
-unmolested, and, with those who had escaped
-seizure, became the progenitors of the
-present Acadians, now settled in various
-parts of the British maritime provinces." Few
-of them, however, returned at any time
-to Grand Pré, and that once thriving settlement
-remained desolate for several years,
-until at last British families straggled in and
-took up the waste lands of the unfortunate
-Acadians.
-
-
-
-
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-.. _`THE WAR PATH OF THE IROQUOIS`:
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- IV
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- THE WAR-PATH OF THE IROQUOIS
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-
-The story of the Richelieu River is a
-story of war and conflict. It opens
-just three hundred years ago, when Champlain
-set out from Quebec to join a war-party
-of Algonquins and Hurons, who had
-determined to seek the Iroquois in their own
-country, and had begged him to aid in the
-expedition. In consenting to do so,
-Champlain no doubt felt that he had good and
-sufficient reasons, but if he could have
-foreseen the consequences of his act he would
-surely have left the Algonquins and Iroquois
-to settle their difficulties in their own way,
-for from this first act of aggression dates the
-implacable hatred of the Iroquois for the
-French, and a century and more of ferocious
-raids into every corner of the struggling
-colony.
-
-Champlain, with his little party of French
-and a horde of naked savages, reached the
-mouth of the Richelieu, or the River of the
-Iroquois as it was then called, about the
-end of June 1609. The Indians quarrelled
-among themselves, and three-fourths of their
-number deserted and made off for home.
-The rest continued their course up the
-waters of the Richelieu. When they reached
-the rapids, above the Basin of Chambly, it
-was found impossible to take the shallop in
-which the French had travelled any farther.
-Sending most of his men back to Quebec,
-he himself, with two companions, determined
-to see the adventure through. After many
-days' hard paddling, the flotilla of canoes
-swept out on to the bosom of the noble lake
-which perpetuates the name of Champlain,
-and in the evening of the twenty-ninth of
-July they discovered the Iroquois in their
-canoes, near the point of land where Fort
-Ticonderoga was long afterwards built. The
-Iroquois made for the shore, and as night
-was falling it was mutually agreed to defer
-the battle until the following morning. The
-Iroquois threw up a barricade, while Champlain
-and his native allies spent the night
-in their canoes on the lake.
-
-In the morning Champlain and his two
-men put on light armour, and the whole
-party landed at some distance from the
-Iroquois. "I saw the enemy go out of
-their barricade," says Champlain, "nearly
-two hundred in number, stout and rugged
-in appearance. They came at a slow pace
-towards us, with a dignity and assurance
-which greatly amused me, having three
-chiefs at their head. Our men also advanced
-in the same order, telling me that those
-who had three large plumes were the chiefs,
-and that I should do what I could to kill
-them. I promised to do all in my power.
-
-"As soon as we had landed, they began
-to run for some two hundred paces towards
-their enemies, who stood firmly, not having
-as yet noticed my companions, who went
-into the woods with some savages. Our
-men began to call me with loud cries; and
-in order to give me a passage-way, they
-opened in two parts, and put me at their
-head, where I marched some twenty paces
-in advance of the rest, until I was within
-about thirty paces of the enemy, who at
-once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me,
-as I did also at them. When I saw them
-making a move to fire at us, I rested my
-musket against my cheek, and aimed directly
-at one of the three chiefs. With the same
-shot two fell to the ground, and one of their
-men was so wounded that he died some time
-after. I had loaded my musket with four
-balls. When our side saw this shot so
-favourable for them, they began to raise
-such loud cries that one could not have
-heard it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows
-flew on both sides. The Iroquois were
-greatly astonished that two men had been
-so quickly killed, although they were equipped
-with armour woven from cotton thread,
-and with wood which was proof against
-their arrows. This caused great alarm
-among them. As I was loading again, one
-of my companions fired a shot from the
-woods, which astonished them anew to such
-a degree that, seeing their chiefs dead, they
-lost courage, and took to flight, abandoning
-their camp and fort, and fleeing into the
-woods, whither I pursued them, killing still
-more of them. Our savages also killed
-several, and took ten or twelve prisoners.
-The remainder escaped with the wounded.
-
-"After gaining the victory, our men
-amused themselves by taking a great
-quantity of Indian corn and some meal from
-their enemies, also their armour, which they
-had left behind that they might run better.
-After feasting sumptuously, dancing and
-singing, we returned three hours after,
-with the prisoners."
-
-On the return journey, the Algonquins
-tied one of the prisoners to a stake, and
-tortured him with such refinement of cruelty
-as to arouse the disgust and resentment of
-Champlain. Finally, they allowed him to
-put the wretched Iroquois out of his misery
-with a musket-ball. Arrived at the rapids,
-the Algonquins and Hurons returned to
-their own country, with loud protestations
-of friendship for Champlain, while the latter
-continued his journey down to Quebec.
-
-If anything remained to heap the cup of
-Iroquois resentment to the brim, it was
-provided the following year, when Champlain
-again lent his assistance to the Algonquins
-and Hurons, and, encountering a war-party
-of Iroquois, a hundred strong, near
-the mouth of the Richelieu, killed or
-captured every one of them. The day was to
-come when the tables would be turned with
-a vengeance, when the war-cry of the
-Iroquois would be heard under the walls
-of Montreal and Quebec, and the death of
-each of the hundred warriors avenged a
-hundredfold.
-
-But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu
-is not limited to Indian wars, or the conflict
-between Indian and French. In later years
-it was to become the road of war between
-white and white, between New England and
-New France, and again between the revolted
-colonists of New England and the loyal
-colonists of Canada. On the very spot where
-Champlain and his Algonquins had defeated
-the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years
-later another conflict took place, curiously
-similar in some respects, though different
-enough in others. Again one side fought
-behind a barricade, while the other gallantly
-rushed to the assault, and again the defeat
-was overwhelming; but there the resemblance
-ends. Behind the impregnable breastwork
-at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with
-his three or four thousand French; without
-stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand
-British regulars and Colonial militia.
-Abercrombie's one and only idea was to carry the
-position by assault, and throughout the long
-day he hurled regiment after regiment up
-the deadly slope, only to see them mown
-down by hundreds and thousands before the
-breastwork. Champlain's victory was one
-of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm's
-was one of skill over stupidity.
-
-Seventeen years after the battle of
-Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more became the
-road of war. Down its historic waters came
-Montgomery, with his three thousand
-Americans, to capture Montreal and to be
-driven back from the walls of Quebec.
-Among all the singular circumstances that
-led up to and accompanied this disastrous
-attempt to relieve Canadians of the British
-yoke, none was more remarkable, or more
-significant, than the fact that the bulk of
-the plucky little army with which Guy
-Carleton successfully defended England's
-northern colony consisted of
-French-Canadians--the same down-trodden
-French-Canadians on whose behalf Congress had
-sent an army to drive the British into the
-sea. As for the Richelieu, having served for
-the better part of two centuries as the
-pathway of savage and civilised war, its
-energies were at length turned into channels
-of peaceful commerce.
-
-
-
-
-
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-.. _`THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT`:
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- V
-
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-
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-
- THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-..
-
- | That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell
- | The seething horrors of its watery hell!
- | Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,
- | Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep
- | The tortured floods, drifting from side to side
- | In furious vortices.
- | KIRBY.
- |
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-Father Louis Hennepin, in his
-*New Discovery of a Vast Country in
-America*, gives the earliest known description
-of the river and falls of Niagara. "Betwixt
-the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there
-is a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water
-which falls down after a surprising and
-astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe
-does not afford its Parallel. 'Tis true,
-Italy and Suedeland boast of some such
-Things; but we may as well say they are
-but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this
-of which we now speak. At the foot of this
-horrible Precipice, we meet with the River
-Niagara, which is not above half a quarter
-of a League broad, but is wonderfully deep
-in some places. It is so rapid above this
-Descent that it violently hurries down the
-wild Beasts while endeavouring to pass it to
-feed on the other side, they not being able
-to withstand the force of its Current, which
-inevitably casts them down headlong above
-Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall
-is compounded of two great Cross-streams
-of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping
-along the middle of it. The Waters which
-Fall from this vast height, do foam and boil
-after the most hideous manner imaginable,
-making an outrageous Noise, more terrible
-than that of Thunder; for when the Wind
-blows from off the South, their dismal roaring
-may be heard above fifteen Leagues off. The
-River Niagara having thrown itself down
-this incredible Precipice, continues its
-impetuous course for two Leagues together, to
-the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity:
-But having passed that, its Impetuosity
-relents, gliding along more gently for two
-Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario,
-or Frontenac."
-
-This same year, 1678, when Hennepin
-visited the great falls, La Salle, with his
-lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy
-with preparations for their western explorations,
-and in these the Niagara River was
-to play an important part. It was about
-the middle of November when La Motte,
-with Father Hennepin and sixteen men,
-sailed from Fort Frontenac (Kingston) in a
-little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and
-the cold of the autumn," says Hennepin,
-"were then very violent, insomuch that our
-crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel.
-This oblig'd us to keep our course on the
-north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves
-under the coast against the north-west
-wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in
-great danger, a couple of leagues off shore,
-where they were obliged to lie at anchor all
-night. The wind coming round to the north-east,
-however, they managed to continue their
-voyage, and arrived safely at an Iroquois
-village called Tajajagon, where Toronto
-stands to-day. They ran their little ship
-into the mouth of the Humber, where the
-Iroquois came to barter Indian corn, and
-gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the
-marvellous inventions of the white men.
-Contrary winds and trouble with the ice kept
-them there until the fifth of December, when
-they crossed the lake to the mouth of the
-Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's
-Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine
-River Niagara, into which never any such
-Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there
-Te Deum, and other prayers, to return our
-thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous
-voyage." After examining the river as far
-as Chippewa Creek, La Motte, Hennepin
-and the men set to work to build a cabin,
-surrounded by palisades, two leagues above
-the mouth of the river. The ground was
-frozen, and hot water had to be used to
-thaw it out before the stakes could be driven
-in. The Iroquois, who according to
-Hennepin had been very friendly on their arrival
-at the mouth of the river, presenting them
-with fish, imputing their good fortune in
-the fisheries to the white men, and examining
-with interest and astonishment the "great
-wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious
-when they saw the strangers building a
-fortified house on what they considered
-peculiarly their own territory. La Motte
-and Hennepin went off to the great village
-of the Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to
-obtain their consent to the building of the
-fort, but without much success. Soon after
-their departure, La Salle and Tonty reached
-the Seneca village, on their way from Fort
-Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive,
-or more fortunate than his lieutenant, La
-Salle secured permission not only for the
-fortified post at the mouth of the river, but
-also for a much more important undertaking
-which he had planned, the building of a
-vessel at the upper end of the Niagara River,
-to be used in connection with his western
-explorations.
-
-During the winter the necessary material
-for the *Griffin*, as the new vessel was to be
-called, was carried over the long portage to
-the mouth of Cayuga Creek, above the falls,
-where a dock was prepared and the keel laid.
-La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin
-to desire him to drive the first bolt, but,
-as he says, his profession obliged him to
-decline the honour. La Salle returned to
-Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty to finish the
-work. The Iroquois, in spite of their
-agreement with La Salle, watched the
-building of the *Griffin* with jealous
-dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of
-Frenchmen in a state of constant anxiety.
-Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the
-neighbouring tribes took the majority of
-them off, and the work was pushed forward
-with redoubled zeal, so that it might be
-completed before their return. The Indians
-that remained behind were too few to make
-an open attack, but they did their utmost
-to prevent the completion of the ship. One
-of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the
-blacksmith and tried to kill him, but was
-driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin
-naïvely remarks that this, "together with
-the reprimand he received from me," obliged
-him to be gone. A native woman warned
-Tonty that an attempt would be made to
-burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas
-tried to starve the French by refusing to
-sell them corn, and might have succeeded
-but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters,
-who kept the workmen supplied with game
-from the surrounding forest. Finally, the
-*Griffin* was launched, amid the shouts of the
-French and the yelpings of the Indians, who
-forgot their displeasure in the novel
-spectacle. She was towed up the Niagara, and
-on the seventh of August, 1679, La Salle and
-his men sailed out over the placid waters of
-Lake Erie, the booming of his cannon
-announcing the approach of the first ship of
-the upper lakes. In the *Griffin* La Salle sailed
-through Lakes Eric, St. Clair, and Huron, to
-Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake
-Michigan to the entrance to Green Bay,
-where some of his men, sent on ahead, had
-collected a quantity of valuable furs. These
-he determined to send back to Canada, to
-satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors,
-while he continued his voyage to the
-Mississippi. The *Griffin* set sail for Niagara
-on the eighteenth of September. She never
-reached her destination, and her fate has
-remained one of the mysteries of Canadian
-history.
-
-
-
-
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. _`THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE`:
-
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-
- VI
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-.. class:: center large
-
- THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-..
-
- | Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stain
- | Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
- | Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
- | Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
- | Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,
- | The pines that brood above the roaring foam
- | Of La Montague or Des Erables; thine home
- | Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
- | Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
- | And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.
- | The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
- | The beryl waters that espouse and take
- | Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
- | In that great bridal journey to the sea.
- | LAMPMAN.
- |
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-While Champlain was in Paris, in
-1612, a young man, one Nicolas de
-Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year
-to visit the tribes of the Ottawa, reappeared,
-with a marvellous tale of what he had seen
-on his travels. He had found a great lake,
-he said, and out of it a river flowing north,
-which he had descended and reached the
-shores of the sea, where he had seen the
-wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days'
-travel by canoe, said Vignau, would bring
-one to the shores of his sea. Champlain
-was delighted, and prepared immediately to
-follow up this important discovery. He
-returned to Canada, and about the end of
-May 1613 set out from Montreal with
-Vignau and three companions. The rest of
-the story is better told in Parkman's
-words--and Parkman is here at his very best.
-
-"All day they plied their paddles, and
-when the night came they made their
-campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east
-glowed with tranquil fire, that pierced, with
-eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose jagged tops
-stood drawn in black against the burning
-heaven. Beneath the glossy river slept in
-shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of
-burnished bronze; and the white moon,
-paling in the face of day, hung like a disk of
-silver in the western sky. Now a fervid
-light touched the dead top of the hemlock,
-and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy
-beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in
-the breathless air. Now, a fiercer spark
-beamed from the east; and now, half risen
-on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun
-blazed with floods of radiance across the
-awakened wilderness.
-
-"The canoes were launched again, and
-the voyagers held their course. Soon the
-still surface was flecked with spots of foam;
-islets of froth floated by, tokens of some great
-convulsion. Then, on their left, the falling
-curtain of the Rideau shone like silver
-betwixt its bordering woods, and in front,
-white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the
-Chaudière barred their way. They saw the
-unbridled river careering down its sheeted
-rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms,
-wearying the solitude with the hoarse outcry
-of its agony and rage."
-
-While the Indians threw an offering into
-the foam as an offering to the Manitou of
-the cataract, Champlain and his men
-shouldered their canoes and climbed over the
-long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake
-of the Chaudière, now Lake Des Chênes.
-Past the Falls of the Chats and a long
-succession of rapids they made their way,
-until at last, discouraged by the difficulties
-of the river, they took to the woods,
-and made their way through them, tormented
-by mosquitoes, to the village of
-Tessouat, one of the principal chiefs of the
-Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to
-his country.
-
-Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes,
-and a great deal of speech-making followed.
-Champlain asked for men and canoes to
-conduct him to the country of the Nipissings,
-through whom he hoped to reach the North
-Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked
-dubious. They had no love for the Nipissings,
-and preferred to keep Champlain among
-themselves. Finally, at his urgent solicitation,
-they agreed, but as soon as he had
-left the lodge they changed their minds.
-Champlain returned and upbraided them as
-children who could not hold fast to their
-word. They replied that they feared that
-he would be lost in the wild north country,
-and among the treacherous Nipissings.
-
-"But," replied Champlain, "this young
-man, Vignau, has been to their country,
-and did not find the road or the people so
-bad as you have said."
-
-"Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did
-you say that you had been to the Nipissings?"
-
-"Yes," he replied, "I have been there,"
-
-"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious
-host; "you know very well that
-you slept here among my children every
-night, and got up again every morning; and
-if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must
-have been when you were asleep. How can
-you be so impudent as to lie to your chief,
-and so wicked as to risk his life among so
-many dangers? He ought to kill you with
-tortures worse than those with which we
-kill our enemies."
-
-Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but
-finally broke down and confessed his
-treachery. This "most impudent liar," as
-Champlain calls him, seems to have had no
-more substantial motive for his outrageous
-fabrication than vanity and the love of
-notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his
-presence, and in bitter disappointment
-retraced his steps to Montreal.
-
-From the days of Champlain to the close
-of the period of French rule, and for many
-years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as
-the main thoroughfare from Montreal to
-the great west. Up these waters generation
-after generation of fur-traders made their
-way, their canoes laden with goods, to be
-exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine,
-the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca,
-for skins brought in by all the surrounding
-tribes. Long before the first settler came
-to clear the forest and make a home for
-himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed
-to the shouts of French *voyageurs* and
-Indian canoe-men, and the gay songs of
-Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling
-under a hot midsummer sun, and many a
-long and toilsome portage, were lightened
-by the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma
-boule," or the tender refrain of "A la claire
-fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs
-became in time a link between the old days of
-the fur-trade and the later period of the
-lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many
-years ago that one might sit on the banks
-of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings,
-and, as the mighty rafts of logs floated
-past, catch the familiar refrain, softened
-by distance:
-
- | Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
- | En roulant ma boule roulant,
- | En roulant ma boule.
-
-
-
-
-
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-.. _`THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH`:
-
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- VII
-
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-.. class:: center large
-
- THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-..
-
- | But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,
- | Unequal to the chase,
- | Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,
- | No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
- | And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,
- | The savage shout, and mighty bison tramp
- | Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.
- | MAIR.
- |
-
-.. vspace:: 2
-
-In September 1738 a party of French
-explorers left Fort Maurepas, near the
-mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting
-the lower end of Lake Winnipeg in their
-canoes, reached the delta of the Red River
-of the North. Threading its labyrinthine
-channels, they finally emerged on the main
-stream. The commander of this little band
-of pathfinders--first of white men to see the
-waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier
-de la Vérendrye, one of the most dauntless
-and unselfish characters in the whole history
-of exploration. Paddling up the river, La
-Vérendrye and his men finally came to the
-mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of
-the Asiliboiles, as La Vérendrye calls it,
-where he met a party of Crees with two
-war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him
-from continuing his journey toward the
-west, using the usual native arguments as
-to the dangers of the way, and the treachery
-of other tribes; but La Vérendrye had
-heard such arguments before, and was not
-to be turned from his purpose by dangers,
-real or assumed. He had set his heart on
-the discovery of the Western Sea, and as a
-means to that end was now on his way to
-visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country
-lay toward the south-west--the Mandans of
-the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers
-behind to build a fort at the mouth of the
-Assiniboine, about where the city of Winnipeg
-stands to-day, he continued his journey
-to the west. Somewhere near the present
-town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men
-built another small post, afterwards known
-as Fort La Reine. From this outpost he
-set out in October, with a selected party of
-twenty men, for an overland journey to the
-Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting
-a village of Assiniboines on the way, La
-Vérendrye arrived on the banks of the
-Missouri on the third of December. Knowing
-the value of an imposing appearance, he
-made his approach to the Mandan village
-as spectacular as possible. His men marched
-in military array, with the French flag borne
-in front, and as the Mandans crowded out
-to meet him, the explorer brought his little
-company to a stand, and had them fire a
-salute of three volleys, with all the available
-muskets, to the unbounded astonishment
-and no small terror of the Mandans, to
-whom both the white men and their weapons
-were entirely unknown. After spending
-some time with the Mandans, La Vérendrye
-returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of
-his men behind to learn the language, and
-pick up all the information obtainable as to
-the unknown country that lay beyond, and
-the prospects of reaching the Western Sea
-by way of the Missouri. The story of La
-Vérendrye's later explorations, and his efforts
-to realise his life-long ambition to reach the
-shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest,
-but lies outside the present subject.
-
-Returning to the Red River of the North,
-and spanning the interval in time to the
-close of the eighteenth century, we find
-another party of white men making their
-way up its muddy waters. This "brigade"
-of fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge
-of a famous Nor'-Wester known as Alexander
-Henry, whose voluminous journals were
-resurrected from the archives of the Library
-of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago.
-Henry gives us an admirably full picture of
-the Red River country and its human and
-other inhabitants, as they were in his day.
-One can see the long string of heavily laden
-canoes as they forced their way slowly up
-the current of the Red River, paddles dipping
-rhythmically to the light-hearted chorus of
-some old Canadian *chanson*. At night the
-camp is pitched on some comparatively high
-ground, fires are lighted, kettles hung, and
-the evening meal despatched. Then the
-men gather about the camp-fires, fill their
-pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story.
-They turn in early, however, for the day's
-paddling has been long and heavy, and they
-must be off again before daylight on the
-morrow. So the story runs from day to day.
-
-They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine,
-and Henry notes the ruins of La Vérendrye's
-old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg
-will appreciate his feeling references to the
-clinging character of the soil about the
-mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain
-had turned it into a kind of mortar that
-adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every
-step we raise several pounds of it."
-
-These were the days when the buffalo
-roamed in vast herds throughout the great
-western plains. One gets from Henry's
-narrative some idea of their almost
-inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red
-River, the country seemed alive with them.
-The "beach, once a soft black mud into
-which a man would sink knee-deep, is now
-made hard as pavement by the numerous
-herds coming to drink. The willows are
-entirely trampled and torn to pieces; even
-the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in
-places. The grass on the first bank of the
-river is entirely worn away." As the brigade
-nears the point where the international
-boundary crosses the Red River, an immense
-herd is seen, "commencing about half a mile
-from the camp, whence the plain was covered
-on the west side of the river as far as the
-eye could reach. They were moving southward
-slowly, and the meadow seemed as if
-in motion."
-
-One further glimpse from Henry's Journal
-will serve to give some idea of life on the
-banks of the Red River at the beginning of
-the last century. Henry is describing the
-"bustle and noise which attended the
-transportation of *five* pieces of trading goods"
-from his own fort to one of the branch
-establishments.
-
-"Antoine Payet, guide and second in
-command, leads the van, with a cart drawn
-by two horses and loaded with his private
-baggage, cassettes, bags, kettles, etc.
-Madame Payet follows the cart with a child
-a year old on her back, very merry. Charles
-Bottineau, with two horses and a cart loaded
-with one and a half packs, his own baggage,
-and two young children, with kettles and
-other trash hanging on to it. Madame
-Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her
-back, scolding and tossing it about. Joseph
-Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem
-and calumet in his hand; Madame Dubord
-follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch
-with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe,
-with another cart and horses, loaded with
-two pieces of goods and with baggage
-belonging to Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot,
-and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste
-Brisebois follows with only his gun on his
-shoulder and a fresh-lighted pipe in his
-mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like
-Brisebois, with gun and pipe, puffing out
-clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the
-greatest smoker in the North-West, has
-nothing but pipe and pouch. These three
-fellows, having taken a farewell dram and
-lighted fresh pipes, go on brisk and merry,
-playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois,
-with a young mare, the property of
-Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking,
-an old worsted bag (madame's property),
-some squashes and potatoes, a small keg of
-fresh water, and two young whelps howling.
-Next goes Livernois' young horse, drawing
-a *travaille* loaded with his baggage and a
-large worsted *mashguemcate* belonging to
-Madame Langlois. Next appears Madame
-Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting,
-hauling a *travaille* loaded with a bag of
-flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a small keg
-of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel
-Langlois, who is master of the band, now
-comes on leading a horse that draws a
-*travaille* nicely covered with a new-painted
-tent, under which his daughter and
-Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this
-covering or canopy has a pretty effect in
-the caravan, and appears at a great distance
-in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up
-the rear of the human beings, following the
-*travaille* with a slow step and melancholy air,
-attending to the wants of her daughter,
-who, notwithstanding her sickness, can find
-no other expressions of gratitude to her
-parents than by calling them dogs, fools,
-beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a
-long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs,
-some for game, and others of no use whatever,
-except to snarl and destroy meat.
-The total forms a procession nearly a
-mile long, and appears like a large band
-of Assiniboines."
-
-To the uninitiated, it may be explained
-that a *cassette* is a box for carrying small
-articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian
-pipe; a *travaille* is a primitive species of
-conveyance, consisting of a couple of long
-poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog,
-as the case may be, and the other trailing
-on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway
-hold the poles together, and serve as a
-foundation for whatever load, human or
-otherwise, it is intended to carry.
-*Mashguemcate* is a species of bag, a general
-receptacle for odds and ends.
-
-
-
-
-
-.. vspace:: 4
-
-.. _`THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE`:
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-.. class:: center large
-
- VIII
-
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- THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE
-
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-
-..
-
- | I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land
- | Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height,
- | Uprearing crests all starry-diademed
- | Above the silver clouds.
- | LAUT.
- |
-
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-
-There was a man in the western
-fur-trade who felt that other things were
-better worth while than the bartering of
-blankets and beads for beaver-skins. His
-heart responded to the compelling cry of
-the unknown, and one bright June day, in
-the year 1789, he set forth in quest of other
-worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie,
-and the worlds he sought to conquer were
-those of the far north. There was said to
-be a mighty river whose waters no white
-man had ever yet seen, whose source and
-outlet could only be guessed at, from the
-vague reports of Indians, whose banks were
-said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes,
-and whose course was broken by so many and
-dangerous cataracts that no traveller might
-hope to navigate its waters and live.
-
-Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony
-of the fur-trader's life, listened eagerly
-to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian
-character to make due allowances for
-exaggerations; but had all that he heard been
-true, the prospect of danger would only
-have whetted his appetite for exploration.
-From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake
-Athabasca, the way lay clear, and he launched
-his canoe, manned by four Canadian
-*voyageurs*, while his Indian interpreters and
-hunters followed in a second. To Great
-Slave Lake they were on familiar waters,
-but beyond all was conjecture.
-
-To appreciate the magnitude of Mackenzie's
-undertaking, one must bear in mind
-that his object was to trace the mighty river
-that afterward bore his name to its mouth.
-He had no certain knowledge where it might
-empty--perhaps into the Arctic, possibly
-into the Pacific. In any case it involved a
-long journey, with all sorts of possible
-difficulties, human and natural; and as he must
-travel light, with only a limited supply of
-provisions, it was essential that he should
-go and return in one season--the very short
-season of these far northern latitudes. The
-natives whom he questioned ridiculed the
-idea of descending the Mackenzie to its
-outlet and returning the same season. They
-assured him that it would take him the entire
-season to go down; that winter would
-overtake him before he could begin the
-return journey; and that he would certainly
-perish of cold or starvation, even if he
-escaped the hostile tribes of the lower waters
-of the river.
-
-Mackenzie was confident that the journey
-could be made in the season, but to succeed
-they must travel at top speed. He had
-picked men with him, and it was fortunate
-that he had, for the pace was almost killing.
-Half-past three in the morning generally
-saw them in the canoes and off for a long
-day's hard paddling. One day they paddled
-steadily from half-past two in the morning
-until six in the evening, except short stops
-for meals, covering seventy-two miles in
-spite of a head wind.
-
-When they reached Great Slave Lake,
-they found it almost entirely covered with
-ice, though it was now the ninth of June.
-Coming down Slave River they had been
-tortured with mosquitoes and gnats, and the
-trees along the banks were in full leaf. This
-violent change was characteristic of the
-north. Five precious days were lost waiting
-for the ice to move, so that they might cross
-the lake. At last a westerly wind opened a
-passage, and after some perilous adventures
-they made the northern shore. Coasting
-slowly to the westward, about the end of
-the month they rounded the point of a long
-island, and Mackenzie found himself on the
-great river. The current increased as they
-travelled down stream, and it was possible
-to make good progress.
-
-On they went, day after day. July 1st
-they passed the mouth of what the Indians
-called the River of the Mountain, afterward
-known as the Liard, where Fort Simpson
-was built many years later. As they
-proceeded, it became clear to Mackenzie that
-the river down which he was paddling must
-empty into the Arctic--but would it be
-possible to reach the ocean and return to
-Fort Chipewyan that season? The men
-were beginning to get discouraged, and it
-required all Mackenzie's enthusiasm and
-strength of purpose to keep them to the
-strenuous task. The tribes they met as they
-went north--Slaves and Dog-ribs and Hare
-Indians--did not prove as ferocious as they
-had been represented, but they one and all
-described the dangers of the river below
-as stupendous. The *voyageurs* grumbled,
-but did not openly rebel. As for the
-Indians of Mackenzie's party, they were in
-open terror; expected at every turn of the
-river to come upon some of the fearful
-monsters of which the Slaves or Dog-ribs
-had warned them, and were only kept from
-deserting by Mackenzie's overmastering will.
-As they approached the mouth of the river,
-another terror was added--fear of meeting
-the Eskimos, for Indian and Eskimo were at
-deadly enmity. Altogether, the plucky
-explorer had troubles enough.
-
-On the second of July he came within
-sight of the Rocky Mountains, whose
-glistening summits the Indians called *Manetoe
-aseniah*, or spirit-stones, and the following
-day he camped at the foot of a remarkable
-hill, constantly referred to in the narratives
-of Sir John Franklin, Richardson, and other
-later explorers, as the "Rock by the River
-Side." There is an admirable drawing of
-the rock, by Kendall, in the narrative of
-Franklin's second voyage.
-
-A few days later Mackenzie passed the
-mouth of Bear River, draining that huge
-reservoir, Great Bear Lake, whose discovery
-remained for later explorers to accomplish,
-and about one hundred and twenty-five
-miles below he came to the Sans Sault
-Rapids--the fearful waterfall against which
-the natives had warned him. As a matter
-of fact it can be safely navigated at almost
-any season of the year.
-
-Another thirty miles brought the explorer
-to the afterward famous Ramparts of the
-Mackenzie. Here the banks suddenly
-contract to a width of five hundred yards, and
-for several miles the travellers passed through
-a gigantic tunnel, whose walls of limestone
-rose majestically on either side to a height
-of from one hundred and twenty-five to two
-hundred and fifty feet.
-
-At last they reached the delta of the river,
-and it was well that they were so near their
-destination, for the Indians were thoroughly
-demoralised and the *voyageurs* dispirited,
-provisions were running perilously low, and
-the short northern summer was rapidly
-drawing to its close. On July 12th the party
-emerged from the river into what seemed to
-Mackenzie to be a lake, but which was really
-the mouth of the river. The following day
-confirmation of this came with the rising
-tide, which very nearly carried off the men's
-baggage while they slept. Paddling over to
-an island, which he named Whale Island, to
-commemorate an exciting chase after a school
-of these enormous animals the previous day,
-Mackenzie erected a post, on which he
-engraved the latitude of the spot, his own
-name, the number of persons he had with
-him in the expedition, and the time spent
-on the island.
-
-After a fruitless attempt to get in touch
-with the Eskimo, Mackenzie turned his face
-to the south, and, after a comparatively
-uneventful journey, arrived at Fort
-Chipewyan on September 12th, after a voyage
-of one hundred and two days. He had
-explored one of the greatest rivers of
-America, from Great Slave Lake to the
-Arctic, and he had added to the known
-world a territory greater than Europe.
-Nor was this all, for Mackenzie's journey
-to the Arctic was but the introduction to
-his even more difficult, and more momentous,
-expedition of three years later, over the
-mountains to the shores of the Pacific.
-This, however, does not lie within the
-compass of the present sketch.
-
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- BOYLE, SON AND WATCHURST
- PRINTERS,
- 3-5 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.
-
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- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-
-
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
-no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
-
-
-Title: By Canadian Streams
-
-Author: Lawrence J. Burpee
-
-Release Date: July 02, 2012 [EBook #38933]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: US-ASCII
-
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY CANADIAN STREAMS ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Al Haines.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: Cover]
-
-
-
-
- BY CANADIAN STREAMS
-
-
- BY
-
- LAWRENCE J. BURPEE
-
-
-
-
- TORONTO
- THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED
-
-
-
-
- _Entered at_
- _Stationers Hall_
- 1909
-
-
-
-
- THE RIVERS OF CANADA
-
-
-Who that has travelled upon their far-spreading waters has not felt the
-compelling charm of the rivers of Canada? The matchless variety of their
-scenery, from the gentle grace of the Sissibou to the tempestuous
-grandeur of the Fraser; the romance that clings to their shores--legends
-and tales of Micmac and Iroquois, Cree, Blackfoot, and Chilcotin;
-stories of peaceful Acadian villages beside the Gaspereau, and fortified
-towns along the St. Lawrence; of warlike expeditions and missionary
-enterprises up the Richelieu and the Saguenay; of heroic exploits at the
-Long Sault and at Vercheres; of memorable explorations in the north and
-the far west? How many of us realise the illimitable possibilities of
-these arteries of a nation, their vital importance as avenues of
-commerce and communication, the potential energy stored in their rushing
-waters? Do we even appreciate their actual extent, or thoroughly grasp
-the fact that this network of waterways covers half a continent, and
-reaches every corner of this vast Dominion?
-
-Two hundred years ago little was known of these rivers outside the
-valley of the St. Lawrence. One hundred years later scores of new
-waterways had been explored from source to outlet, some of them ranking
-among the great rivers of the earth. The Western Sea, that had lured
-the restless sons of New France toward the setting sun, that had
-furnished a dominating impulse to her explorers, from Jacques Cartier to
-La Verendrye, was at last reached by Canadians of another race--and the
-road that they travelled was the water-road that connects three oceans.
-In their frail canoes these tireless pathfinders journeyed up the mighty
-St. Lawrence and its great tributary the Ottawa, through Lake Nipissing,
-and down the French river to Georgian Bay; they skirted the shores of
-the inland seas to the head of Lake Superior, and by way of numberless
-portages crossed the almost indistinguishable height of land to Rainy
-Lake and the beautiful Lake of the Woods. They descended the wild
-Winnipeg to Lake Winnipeg, paddled up the Saskatchewan to Cumberland
-House, turned north by way of Frog Portage to the Churchill, and
-ascended that waterway to its source, where they climbed over Meythe
-Portage--famous in the annals of exploration and the fur trade--to the
-Clearwater, a branch of the Athabaska, and so came to Fort Chipewyan, on
-Lake Athabaska. Descending Slave River for a few miles, they came to
-the mouth of Peace River, and after many days' weary paddling were in
-sight of the Rocky Mountains. Still ascending the same river, they
-traversed the mountains, and by other streams were borne down the
-western slope to the shores of the remote Pacific.
-
-The world offers no parallel to this extraordinary water-road from the
-Atlantic to the Pacific; nor is the tale all told. From that great
-central reservoir, that master-key to the whole system of water
-communications, the traveller might turn his canoe in any direction, and
-traverse the length and breadth of the continent to its most remote
-boundaries: east to the Atlantic, west to the Pacific, north to the
-Arctic or to Hudson Bay, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
-
-The story of Canadian rivers would fill several volumes if one attempted
-to do justice to such a broad and varied theme. One may only hope, in
-the few pages that follow, to give glimpses of the story; to suggest,
-however inadequately, the dramatic and romantic possibilities of the
-subject; to recall a few of the memories that cling to the rivers of
-Canada.
-
-
-
-
- CONTENTS
-
-
- I. The Great River of Canada
- II. The Mystic Saguenay
- III. The River of Acadia
- IV. The War Path of the Iroquois
- V. The River of the Cataract
- VI. The Highway of the Fur Trade
- VII. The Red River of the North
- VIII. The Mighty Mackenzie
-
-
-
-
- By Canadian Streams
-
-
-
- I
-
-
- THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA
-
-
- He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
- Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave;
- He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
- What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height,
- And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
- And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils over sea.
- McGEE.
-
-
-If we abandon ourselves to pure conjecture, we may carry the history of
-the St. Lawrence back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when
-daring Portuguese navigators sailed into these northern latitudes; or to
-the latter half of the fifteenth century, when the Basque fishermen are
-said to have brought their adventurous little craft into the Gulf of St.
-Lawrence; or, if you please, we may push the curtain back to the tenth
-century and add another variant to the many theories as to the course of
-the Northmen from Labrador to Nova Scotia. But while this would make a
-romantic story, it is not history. The Vikings of Northern Europe, and
-the Portuguese and Basques of Southern Europe, _may_ have sailed the
-Gulf of St. Lawrence, and _may_ even have entered the estuary of the
-great river, but there is no evidence that they did, and we must
-surrender these picturesque myths if we are to build our story upon a
-tangible foundation.
-
-With the advent of Jacques Cartier, the bluff and fearless mariner of
-St. Malo, we are upon the solid ground of history. There is nothing
-vague or uncertain about either the personality or achievements of this
-Breton captain. He tells his own story, in simple and convincing
-language. It does not require any peculiar gift of imagination to
-picture the scene that marks the beginnings of the history of the St.
-Lawrence. It was upon an autumn day, some three hundred and seventy-four
-years since. Jacques Cartier, with his little fleet, had searched up and
-down the coasts of the gulf for the elusive and much-desired passage to
-the South Seas, but the passage was not there. His Indian guides,
-Taignoagny and Domagaya, had told him something of the mighty
-stream--the Great River of Canada--upon whose waters his ships were even
-now sailing. How almost incredible it must have seemed to him that this
-vast channel, twenty-five miles across from shore to shore, could be a
-river, and nothing more! What thoughts must have surged through his
-brain that here at last was the long-sought passage, the road to golden
-Cathay! Even when, as he sailed onward, it became certain that this was
-indeed a river, although a gigantic one, Jacques Cartier still had
-reason enough to follow its beckoning finger. The Indians said that to
-explore its upper waters he must take to his boats; but they told him of
-three several native kingdoms that lay along its banks, and they assured
-him that its source was so remote that no man had ever journeyed so far.
-Moreover, it came from the south-west, and there lay, and at no
-impossible distance, as report had it, the Vermilion Sea. He might well
-hope to reach that sea by way of the River of Canada. In any event, he
-determined to try.
-
-A week later the ships were anchored off an island, which Cartier named
-the Isle of Bacchus, because of the abundance of grapes found upon its
-shores. Before him rose the forest-clad heights of Cape Diamond,
-destined to become the key to a Colonial empire, the battling-ground of
-three great nations, the site of the most picturesque and most romantic
-city of America. Even at this time the place was of some importance,
-for here stood the native town of Stadacona, the seat of Donnacona,
-"Lord of Canada."
-
-While the ships rode at anchor, Donnacona came down the river with
-twelve canoes and a number of his people. His welcoming harangue
-astonished Cartier, as much by its inordinate length as by the
-extraordinary animation with which it was delivered. The explorer wasted
-no time, however, in ceremonies. The season was drawing on, and much
-remained to be accomplished. Finding safe quarters for two of his
-vessels in the St. Charles River he continued his voyage in the third,
-in spite of the opposition of Donnacona and his people, who with true
-native jealousy would have prevented his further progress. The ship had
-to be left behind at the mouth of the Richelieu, but with two boats,
-manned by some of his sailors, Cartier pushed on to the third native
-kingdom, Hochelaga, which he reached about the beginning of October. His
-reception here was embarrassing in its enthusiasm, for the people of
-Hochelaga testified their faith in the godlike character of their
-visitor by bringing the sick and the maimed to him to be healed by his
-touch.
-
-Climbing the mountain behind the Indian town--which still bears the name
-he then gave it of Mont Royal--Cartier eagerly scanned the country to
-the westward. He could trace the St. Lawrence on one side, and on the
-other saw for the first time its great tributary the Ottawa. The way
-was still open, but rapids barred the further progress of his boats. It
-was too late to do anything more this season, and, taking leave of the
-friendly people of Hochelaga, he returned down the river to Stadacona,
-where in his absence his men had built a substantial fort for the
-winter. With all their preparations, however, a wretched winter was
-passed. The Indians, at first friendly, became distrustful under the
-treacherous influence of Domagaya and Taignoagny, and kept Cartier and
-his men constantly on guard against a possible attack. Added to this,
-the little garrison had to endure the horrors of scurvy. When in the
-following May Cartier made ready to sail back to France, he found it
-necessary to abandon one of his ships and distribute the men between the
-other two vessels. As some satisfaction for the annoyance he had
-suffered at the hands of the Indians, Cartier succeeded in carrying away
-to France not only the troublesome Taignoagny and several of his
-companions, but also the chief, Donnacona.
-
-Cartier sailed for Canada once more in 1541, but only fragmentary
-accounts are available of this voyage. The honest captain of St. Malo
-never succeeded in finding the Vermilion Sea, but he had accomplished
-what was of more importance to future generations--the discovery and
-exploration of the noblest of Canadian rivers. No one who came after
-him could add anything material to this momentous achievement.
-
-For more than half a century after Cartier's final return to France, the
-St. Lawrence was practically abandoned to its native tribes. In 1608,
-however, another famous son of Old France sailed up the St. Lawrence and
-landed with his men at the foot of the same towering rock upon which the
-Indian town of Stadacona had formerly stood. Nothing now remained of
-Donnacona's capital, or of the tribe that once occupied the district.
-The Iroquois, who in Cartier's day dwelt along the borders of the St.
-Lawrence from Stadacona to Hochelaga, had for some unaccountable reason
-abandoned this part of the country, and were now settled between Lake
-Champlain and Lake Ontario. Champlain and those who came after him were
-to find a very different welcome from the descendants of the Indians who
-had welcomed Jacques Cartier to Stadacona and Hochelaga.
-
-Somewhere near the market-place of the Lower Town, Champlain's men fell
-to work to lay the foundations of Quebec. One may get some idea of the
-appearance of the group of buildings, Champlain's _Abitation_, from his
-own rough sketch in the _Voyages_. "My first care," he says, "was to
-build a house within which to store our provisions. This was promptly
-and competently done through the activity of my men, and under my own
-supervision. Near by is the St. Croix River, where of yore Cartier
-spent a winter. While carpenters toiled and other mechanics were at
-work on the house, the others were busy making a clearance about our
-future abode; for as the land seemed fertile, I was anxious to plant a
-garden and determine whether wheat and other cereals could not be grown
-to advantage."
-
-All Champlain's men were not, however, so innocently engaged. There was
-a traitor in the camp. The story is told by Champlain himself, and by
-the historian Lescarbot. It has been re-told, in his characteristically
-simple and graphic manner, by Francis Parkman.
-
-"Champlain was one morning directing his labourers when Tetu, his pilot,
-approached him with an anxious countenance, and muttered a request to
-speak with him in private. Champlain assenting, they withdrew to the
-neighbouring woods, when the pilot disburdened himself of his secret.
-One Antoine Natel, a locksmith, smitten by conscience or fear, had
-revealed to him a conspiracy to murder his commander and deliver Quebec
-into the hands of the Basques and Spaniards then at Tadoussac. Another
-locksmith, named Duval, was author of the plot, and, with the aid of
-three accomplices, had befooled or frightened nearly all the company
-into taking part in it. Each was assured that he should make his
-fortune, and all were mutually pledged to poniard the first betrayer of
-the secret. The critical point of their enterprise was the killing of
-Champlain. Some were for strangling him, some for raising a false alarm
-in the night and shooting him as he came out from his quarters.
-
-"Having heard the pilot's story, Champlain, remaining in the woods,
-desired his informant to find Antoine Natel, and bring him to the spot.
-Natel soon appeared, trembling with excitement and fear, and a close
-examination left no doubt of the truth of his statement. A small
-vessel, built by Pont-Grave at Tadoussac, had lately arrived, and orders
-were now given that it should anchor close at hand. On board was a
-young man in whom confidence could be placed. Champlain sent him two
-bottles of wine, with a direction to tell the four ringleaders that they
-had been given him by his Basque friends at Tadoussac, and to invite
-them to share the good cheer. They came aboard in the evening, and were
-seized and secured. 'Voyla donc mes galants bien estonnez,' writes
-Champlain.
-
-"It was ten o'clock, and most of the men on shore were asleep. They
-were wakened suddenly, and told of the discovery of the plot and the
-arrest of the ringleaders. Pardon was then promised them, and they were
-dismissed again to their beds, greatly relieved, for they had lived in
-trepidation, each fearing the other. Duval's body, swinging from a
-gibbet, gave wholesome warning to those he had seduced; and his head was
-displayed on a pike, from the highest roof of the buildings, food for
-birds, and a lesson to sedition. His three accomplices were carried by
-Pont-Grave to France, where they made their atonement in the galleys."
-
-Of Champlain's later history, his expedition against the Iroquois, by
-way of the Richelieu River and the lake to which he gave his name, and
-his exploration of the Ottawa, something will be said in later chapters.
-
-The next great event in the history of New France, after the founding of
-Quebec by Champlain, was the coming of the Jesuit missionaries; but
-though their headquarters were at Quebec, the field of their heroic
-labours was for the most part in what now constitute the Province of
-Ontario and the State of New York. Their story does not therefore touch
-directly upon the St. Lawrence, except in so far as that river was their
-road to and from the Iroquois towns and the country of the Hurons.
-Indeed, by the middle of the seventeenth century, the St. Lawrence had
-become the main thoroughfare of New France. A fort had been built at
-the mouth of the Richelieu, a small trading settlement existed at Three
-Rivers, and Maisonneuve had laid the foundations of Montreal. Between
-Quebec and these new centres of population there was more or less
-intercourse, and the river bore up and down the vessels of fur-trader
-and merchant, priest and soldier. The St. Lawrence was the highway of
-commerce, the path of the missionary, the road of war, and the one and
-only means of communication for the scattered colonists. Up stream came
-warlike expeditions against the troublesome Iroquois; and down stream
-came the Iroquois themselves, with increasing insolence, until they
-finally carried their raids down to the very walls of Quebec. The St.
-Lawrence was not safe travelling in those days, for white men or red.
-
-During one of these forays, the Iroquois had captured two settlers, one
-Godefroy and Francois Marguerie, an interpreter, both of Three Rivers.
-When some months later the war party returned to attack Three Rivers,
-they brought the Frenchmen with them, and sent Marguerie to the
-commander of the fort with disgraceful terms. Marguerie urged his people
-to reject the offer, and then, keeping his pledged word even to savages,
-returned to face almost certain torture. Fortunately, reinforcements
-arrived from Quebec in the nick of time, and the Iroquois, finding
-themselves at a disadvantage, consented to the ransom of their
-prisoners.
-
-In this same year, 1641, a little fleet which had set forth from
-Rochelle some weeks before dropped anchor at Quebec, and from the ships
-landed Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, with a party of
-enthusiasts destined to found a religious settlement on the island of
-Montreal. They were coldly received by the Governor and people of
-Quebec, who were too weak themselves to care to see the tide of
-population diverted to a new settlement far up the river. Maisonneuve,
-however, turned a deaf ear to all their arguments. "I have not come
-here," he said, "to deliberate, but to act. It is my duty and my honour
-to found a colony at Montreal; and I would go, if every tree were an
-Iroquois!"
-
-In May of the following year the expedition set forth for Montreal.
-With Maisonneuve went two women, whose names were to be closely
-associated with the early history of Montreal--Jeanne Mance and Madame
-de la Peltrie. The Governor, Montmagny, making a virtue of necessity,
-also accompanied the expedition. A more willing companion was Father
-Vimont, Superior of the missions.
-
-It was the seventeenth of the month when the odd little flotilla--a
-pinnace, a flat-bottomed craft driven by sails, and a couple of
-row-boats--approached their destination. The following day they landed
-at what was afterwards known as Point Calliere. The scene is best
-described in the words of Parkman:
-
-"Maisonneuve sprang ashore, and fell on his knees. His followers
-imitated his example; and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs
-of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms, and stores were landed. An
-altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle
-Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant, Charlotte Barre,
-decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders.
-Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont, in
-the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their
-servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a
-warlike figure, erect and tall, his men clustering around him--soldiers,
-sailors, artisans, and labourers--all alike soldiers at need. They
-kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the
-rite was over, the priest turned and addressed them: 'You are a grain of
-mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its branches overshadow the
-earth. You are few, but your work is the work of God. His smile is on
-you, and your children shall fill the land.'
-
-"The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and
-twilight came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow.
-They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung
-them before the altar, where the Host remained exposed. Then they
-pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their
-guards, and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal."
-
-Farther down the St. Lawrence, near the mouth of the Richelieu, stood
-the fortified home of the Seigneur de la Vercheres. This little fort
-was from its position peculiarly exposed to the attacks of the Iroquois.
-Yet men must live, whatever the risks might be. Urgent business called
-the Seigneur to Quebec. Perhaps nothing had been seen or heard of the
-dreaded scourge in the neighbourhood for some time. At any rate,
-whether from a sense of fancied security, or from necessity which must
-sometimes ignore danger, most of the men were working in the fields, at
-some distance from the fort. Suddenly there was a cry, "The Iroquois!"
-Madeleine, the fourteen-year-old daughter of the Seigneur, was at the
-gate. She called in some women who were near at hand, and barred the
-entrance. Two soldiers were in the fort, but they were paralysed with
-fear. Madeleine took charge, shamed the soldiers into at least a
-semblance of manhood, set every one to work to repair the defences, and
-set up dummies upon the walls to deceive the Indians into the belief
-that the fort was well garrisoned. She armed her two young brothers,
-twelve and ten years of age, and an old man of eighty, and carried out
-the deception by a ceaseless patrol throughout the night.
-
-Meanwhile the men in the fields had escaped, and were on their way to
-Montreal for assistance. But Montreal was far off in those days, and
-the relief was slow in coming. The next day, and the next, Madeleine, by
-her own heroic will, kept up the spirits of her little garrison, and
-they made such good use of their guns that the Iroquois dared not come
-to close quarters. When day followed day without the appearance of the
-hoped-for succour, the plucky girl had to struggle with desperate energy
-to maintain the defence. She herself took no rest, but went from place
-to place, cheering the flagging spirits of her brothers, and foiling the
-enemy at every turn. At last, when a full week had gone by, the relief
-party arrived from Montreal, and at their appearance the Iroquois
-hastily withdrew. The men had expected to find the fort in ruins; they
-were agreeably surprised to find all safe; but their amazement knew no
-bounds when the gate was opened and they discovered what manner of
-garrison it was that had held at bay for a week a strong party of the
-ferocious Iroquois.
-
-One might fill many pages with such stories as these, for the early
-history of the Great River of Canada, and of the settlements that grew
-up along its banks, is packed with romantic incidents and dramatic
-situations. These must, however, be left to other hands if we are to
-find space for the stories of other Canadian streams.
-
-
-
-
- II
-
-
- THE MYSTIC SAGUENAY
-
-
- Pile on pile
- The granite masses rise to left and right;
- Bald, stately bluffs that never wear a smile....
- And we must pass a thousand bluffs like these,
- Within whose breasts are locked a myriad mysteries.
- SANGSTER.
-
-
-
-The Saguenay is first heard of in the narrative of Cartier's second
-voyage. On his way to Canada, the realm of the Iroquois sachem,
-Donnacona, he came, early in September 1535, to the mouth of a great
-river flowing into the St. Lawrence from the west. His native guides
-told him that this river, whose gloomy majesty was to be the theme of
-many later travellers, was the main road to the "kingdom of Saguenay."
-One may well believe that the adventurous captain of St. Malo would
-gladly have turned his ships between the towering portals of the
-Saguenay, for the pure joy of discovery, had not a greater project lured
-him toward the south-west.
-
-While his vessels were anchored off the mouth of the river, his
-attention was drawn to a curious fish "which no man had ever before seen
-or heard of." The Indians called them adhothuys, and told him that they
-were found only in such places as this, where the waters of sea and
-river mingled. Cartier says they were as large as porpoises, had the
-head and body of a greyhound, and were as white as snow and without a
-spot. These white porpoises, as they are now called, are still found at
-the mouth of the Saguenay. At one time their capture formed an
-important part of the fisheries of Tadoussac.
-
-There is a romantic tradition that de Roberval sailed up the Saguenay
-with a company of adventurers, about the year 1549, in search of a
-kingdom of fabulous riches, and that he and his men perished on the way.
-It is probable, however, that the expedition had as little foundation as
-the kingdom it was designed to exploit.
-
-Half a century later the first settlement was made at Tadoussac, at the
-mouth of the Saguenay. For many years this had been a meeting-place for
-the Basque traders and the Indians from the interior, but it was not
-until the year 1600 that anything in the nature of a permanent post had
-been established. In that year Pierre de Chauvin, Pont-Grave, and de
-Monts, sailed for the St. Lawrence, built a house at Tadoussac, and left
-sixteen men there for the winter to carry on the fur-trade. The venture
-was not a success, and the place was abandoned the following year, but
-Tadoussac remained for many years an important point in the fur-trade.
-It is said that in 1648 the traffic amounted to 250,000 livres. A
-church built here by the missionaries a hundred years later is still
-standing. Tadoussac is chiefly known to-day as one of the favourite
-watering-places on the Lower St. Lawrence.
-
-It was not until three years after de Chauvin built his trading-post at
-Tadoussac that the Saguenay was actually explored. Champlain and
-Pont-Grave had sailed from Honfleur, in March 1603, on the
-_Bonne-Renommee_, to explore the country and find some more suitable
-place than Tadoussac for a permanent settlement. After meeting a number
-of friendly Indians at Tadoussac, Champlain determined to explore the
-Saguenay, and actually sailed up to the head of navigation, a little
-above the present town of Chicoutimi. By shrewd questions he learned
-from the Indians that above the rapids the river was navigable for some
-distance, that it was again broken by rapids at its outlet from a big
-lake (Lake St. John), that three rivers fell into this lake, and that
-beyond these rivers were strange tribes who lived on the borders of the
-sea. This sea was the great bay, as yet undiscovered, where Henry
-Hudson was seven years later to win an imperishable name, and die a
-victim to the treachery of his crew.
-
-In 1608 Champlain again visited Tadoussac, on his way up the St.
-Lawrence to lay the foundations of Quebec. His companion, Pont-Grave,
-had arrived in another vessel a few days before, armed with the King's
-commission granting him a monopoly of the fur-trade for one year. When
-he reached Tadoussac he found the enterprising Basques already on the
-ground, and carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians. They treated
-the royal letters with contempt, ridiculed Pont-Grave's monopoly, and,
-finally boarding his ship, carried off his guns and ammunition. The
-opportune arrival of Champlain, however, brought them to terms, and they
-finally agreed to return to their legitimate occupation of catching
-whales, leaving the fur-trade, for a time at least, to Pont-Grave and
-Champlain.
-
-The Indians who chiefly frequented Tadoussac at this time were of the
-tribe called Montagnais. Their hunting-ground was the country drained
-by the Saguenay, and they acted as middlemen for the tribes of the far
-north, bringing their furs down to the French at Tadoussac, and carrying
-back the prized trinkets of the white man, which they no doubt bartered
-to their northerly neighbours at an exorbitant profit.
-
-"Indefatigable canoe-men," says Parkman, "in their birchen vessels,
-light as egg-shells, they threaded the devious tracks of countless
-rippling streams, shady by-ways of the forest, where the wild duck
-scarcely finds depth to swim; then descended to their mart along those
-scenes of picturesque yet dreary grandeur which steam has made familiar
-to modern tourists. With slowly moving paddles, they glided beneath the
-cliff whose shaggy brows frown across the zenith, and whose base the
-deep waves wash with a hoarse and hollow cadence; and they passed the
-sepulchral Bay of the Trinity, dark as the tide of Acheron,--a sanctuary
-of solitude and silence: depths which, as the fable runs, no
-sounding-line can fathom, and heights at whose dizzy verge the wheeling
-eagle seems a speck."
-
-Fifty-eight years after Champlain's voyage up the Saguenay, two Jesuit
-missionaries, Claude Dablon and Gabriel Druillettes, set forth from
-Tadoussac with a large party of Indians in forty canoes. Their object
-was to meet the northern Indians at Lake Nekouba, near the height of
-land, and if possible push on to Hudson Bay. It is clear from their
-narrative that French traders or missionaries had already ascended the
-Saguenay as far as Lake St. John, but beyond that Dablon and Druillettes
-entered upon a country which was hitherto unknown to the French. After
-suffering great hardships, the party at last arrived at Lake Nekouba,
-where they found a large gathering of Indians, representing many of the
-surrounding tribes. But while the missionaries were addressing the
-Indians, word came that a war party of Mohawks had penetrated even to
-these remote fastnesses. So overpowering was the dread which these
-redoubtable warriors had inspired among all the tribes of North-eastern
-America, that the gathering broke up in confusion. Every man made off
-to his own home, hoping that he might not meet an Iroquois at the
-portage; and as the Indians of Father Dablon's party were as
-fear-stricken as the rest, all idea of continuing the journey to Hudson
-Bay had to be abandoned, and the missionaries were obliged to retrace
-their steps to Tadoussac.
-
-A decade later, another missionary, Father Albanel, with a Colonial
-officer, Denys de Saint Simon, were more fortunate. Following Dablon's
-route to the height of land, they pushed on to Lake Mistassini, and
-descended Rupert's River to Hudson Bay, where they found a small vessel
-flying the English flag, and two houses, but the English themselves were
-apparently away on some trading expedition.
-
-The Jesuit missionaries seemed to have discovered at an early date the
-advantages of Lake St. John as the site of one of their missions. In
-1808 the ruins of their settlement were still visible on the south side
-of the lake. James McKenzie, of the North-West Company, who visited the
-"King's Posts" in that year, says that "the plum and apple trees of
-their garden, grown wild through want of care, yet bear fruit in
-abundance. The foundation of their church and other buildings, as well
-as the churchyard, are still visible. The bell of their church, two
-iron spades, a horseshoe, a scythe and a bar of iron two feet in length,
-have lately been dug out of the ruins of this apparently once
-flourishing spot, and, adjoining, is an extensive plain or meadow on
-which much timothy hay grows." Elsewhere Mr. McKenzie mentions that the
-Fathers had mills on Lake St. John, some of the materials used in their
-construction having been found there by officers of the North-West
-Company. He adds that an island in the lake, not far from where the
-mission formerly stood, swarms with snakes, which a local tradition
-credited to the power of the worthy Jesuits. The Fathers found them
-inconveniently numerous about their settlement, and conjured them on to
-the island.
-
-A settlement of some kind was made at Chicoutimi, on the Saguenay, early
-in the eighteenth century. A chapel and store, still standing in 1808,
-bore an inscription that they had been built in 1707. Father Coquart
-records that in 1750 there was a saw-mill on the River Oupaouetiche, one
-and a half leagues above Chicoutimi, which worked two saws night and
-day.
-
-
-
-
- III
-
-
- THE RIVER OF ACADIA
-
-
- Along my fathers' dykes I roam again,
- Among the willows by the river-side.
- These miles of green I know from hill to tide,
- And every creek and river's ruddy stain.
- Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain.
- Here, where a people's dearest hope has died,
- Alone of all their children scattered wide,
- I scan the sad memorials that remain.
- HERBIN.
-
-
-
-Some time about the middle of the seventeenth century, an Acadian,
-sailing perhaps from Port Royal in search of peltries or of mere
-adventure, brought his little vessel by great good luck safely through
-that treacherous channel, guarded at one end by Cape Split and at the
-other by the frowning crest of Blomidon, and found himself upon the
-placid waters of the Basin of Minas. Champlain had sailed across the
-mouth of the basin in 1604, and had called it the Port des Mines,
-because of certain copper-mines which he had been led to expect there.
-This Acadian found something better than copper-mines. Safely past
-Blomidon, he came to a land which nature seemed to have set apart as the
-home of an industrious and peace-loving people. Somewhere about the
-mouth of the Gaspereau he built his home. Others followed, and in time
-a long, straggling village grew up; willows were planted, which stand
-to-day as a memorial of this Acadian colony; and after years of toil
-they completed that still more impressive monument of Acadian industry,
-the "long ramparts of their dykes," by which they fenced out the sea
-from the rich and fertile lowlands, and turned these once tide-swept
-flats into green meadows.
-
-The Gaspereau country must have been beautiful enough when the Acadians
-first came to make their home there, but in the years of their
-occupation they gave to the landscape, quite unconsciously no doubt,
-certain subtle touches that turned it into something little less than an
-earthly paradise. Standing upon the ridge and looking down into the
-valley of the Gaspereau, one sees a scene that it not very materially
-changed from the days of the Acadians--after one has eliminated such
-modern excrescences as railways and bridges. The village of Grand Pre
-would have to be rearranged, no doubt. There was less of it in the first
-half of the eighteenth century; it did not cover quite the same ground;
-but no doubt a traveller who came that way in 1750 would have seen in
-the vale beneath many such picturesque cottages embowered in the
-self-same trees, and the rest of the scene would have been much the same
-as he would see to-day. Charles Roberts, the Canadian poet, novelist,
-and historian, has made a word-picture of it. "The picture is an
-exquisite pastoral. Among such deep fields, such billowy groves, and
-such embosomed farmsteads might Theocritus have wrought his idylls to
-the hum of the heavy bees. Along the bottom of the sun-brimmed vale
-sparkles the river, between its banks of wild rose and convolvulus, with
-here and there a clump of grey-green willows, here and there a
-red-and-white bridge. As it nears its mouth the Gaspereau changes its
-aspect. Its complexion of clear amber grows yellow and opaque as it
-mixes with the uprushing tides of Minas, and its widened channel winds
-through a riband of dyked marshes."
-
-This is the valley of the Gaspereau, one of the most beautiful spots in
-the beautiful province of Nova Scotia. This, too, in that far-off
-autumn of 1755, was the scene of one of the most pathetic and tragic
-incidents in the history of America. It would serve no useful purpose
-to discuss that much-debated question of the whys and wherefores of the
-expulsion of the Acadians. The story of the actual tragedy is all we
-have space for here. That story is alone sufficient to make the
-Gaspereau famous among rivers of Canada, and it is best told in the
-language of Francis Parkman. Governor Lawrence had summoned the
-deputies of the Acadian settlements to appear before him at Halifax, to
-take the oath of allegiance and fidelity. They came, but flatly refused
-to take the oath. The Governor and Council thereupon decided that the
-only thing that remained to be done was to deport them from the colony.
-John Winslow, a Colonial officer from Massachusetts, was charged with
-the duty of securing the inhabitants about the Basin of Minas. On
-August 14, 1755, he set forth from his camp at Fort Beausejour, with a
-force of but two hundred and ninety-seven men. He sailed down Chignecto
-Channel to the Bay of Fundy. "Here, while they waited the turn of the
-tide to enter the Basin of Minas," says Parkman, "the shores of
-Cumberland lay before them dim in the hot and hazy air, and the
-promontory of Cape Split, like some misshapen monster of primeval chaos,
-stretched its portentous length along the glimmering sea, with head of
-yawning rock, and ridgy back bristled with forests. Borne on the
-rushing flood, they soon drifted through the inlet, glided under the
-rival promontory of Cape Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of
-Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths of the Rivers Canard and Des
-Habitants, where fertile marshes, diked against the tide, sustained a
-numerous and thriving population. Before them spread the boundless
-meadows of Grand Pre, waving with harvests, or alive with grazing
-cattle; the green slopes behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of
-the Acadian farmers, and the spire of the village church rose against a
-background of woody hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to
-become one of the most wretched spots on earth."
-
-After conferring with his brother officer, Murray, who was encamped with
-his men on the banks of the Pisiquid, where the town of Windsor now
-stands, Winslow returned to Grand Pre. The Acadian elders were told to
-remove all sacred things from the village church, and the building was
-then used as a storehouse. The men pitched their tents outside, while
-Winslow took possession of the priest's house. A summons was sent to
-the male inhabitants of the district, over ten years of age, to attend
-at the church in Grand Pre, on the fifth of September, at three of the
-clock in the afternoon, "that we may impart what we are ordered to
-communicate to them; declaring that no excuse will be admitted on any
-pretence whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in
-default."
-
-"On the next day," continues Parkman, "the inhabitants appeared at the
-hour appointed, to the number of four hundred and eighteen men. Winslow
-ordered a table to be set in the middle of the church, and placed on it
-his instructions and the address he had prepared." It ran partly as
-follows: "The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable
-to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who
-are of the same species. But it is not my business to animadvert on the
-orders I have received, but to obey them; and therefore without
-hesitation I shall deliver to you His Majesty's instructions and
-commands, which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and
-live-stock of all kinds are forfeited to the Crown, with all your other
-effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are
-to be removed from this his province. The peremptory orders of His
-Majesty are that all the French inhabitants of these districts be
-removed; and through His Majesty's goodness I am directed to allow you
-the liberty of carrying with you your money and as many of your
-household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go
-in. I shall do everything in my power that all these goods be secured
-to you, and that you be not molested in carrying them away, and also
-that whole families shall go in the same vessel; so that this removal,
-which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may be made
-as easy as His Majesty's service will admit; and I hope that in whatever
-part of the world your lot may fall, you may be faithful subjects, and a
-peaceable and happy people."
-
-After weary weeks of delay, which tried Winslow's patience to the
-utmost, the transports at last arrived at the mouth of the Gaspereau,
-and the work of embarkation began. Up to the very last the Acadians
-could not believe that the order of deportation was serious, and when
-they finally realised their fate and knew that they must bid farewell
-for ever to their homes--the homes of their fathers, the land that they
-loved so well--their grief was indescribable. "Began to embark the
-inhabitants," says Winslow in his Diary, "who went off very solentarily
-and unwillingly, the women in great distress, carrying off their
-children in their arms; others carrying their decrepit parents in their
-carts, with all their goods; moving in great confusion, and appeared a
-scene of woe and distress." It was late in December before the last
-transport left the mouth of the Gaspereau. Altogether more than
-twenty-one hundred Acadians were exiled from Grand Pre and the country
-round about. They were distributed along the Atlantic coast, from
-Massachusetts to Georgia. Some made their way to Louisiana; some
-escaped and reached Canada. "Some," says Parkman, "after incredible
-hardship, made their way back to Acadia, where, after the peace, they
-remained unmolested, and, with those who had escaped seizure, became the
-progenitors of the present Acadians, now settled in various parts of the
-British maritime provinces." Few of them, however, returned at any time
-to Grand Pre, and that once thriving settlement remained desolate for
-several years, until at last British families straggled in and took up
-the waste lands of the unfortunate Acadians.
-
-
-
-
- IV
-
-
- THE WAR-PATH OF THE IROQUOIS
-
-
-The story of the Richelieu River is a story of war and conflict. It
-opens just three hundred years ago, when Champlain set out from Quebec
-to join a war-party of Algonquins and Hurons, who had determined to seek
-the Iroquois in their own country, and had begged him to aid in the
-expedition. In consenting to do so, Champlain no doubt felt that he had
-good and sufficient reasons, but if he could have foreseen the
-consequences of his act he would surely have left the Algonquins and
-Iroquois to settle their difficulties in their own way, for from this
-first act of aggression dates the implacable hatred of the Iroquois for
-the French, and a century and more of ferocious raids into every corner
-of the struggling colony.
-
-Champlain, with his little party of French and a horde of naked savages,
-reached the mouth of the Richelieu, or the River of the Iroquois as it
-was then called, about the end of June 1609. The Indians quarrelled
-among themselves, and three-fourths of their number deserted and made
-off for home. The rest continued their course up the waters of the
-Richelieu. When they reached the rapids, above the Basin of Chambly, it
-was found impossible to take the shallop in which the French had
-travelled any farther. Sending most of his men back to Quebec, he
-himself, with two companions, determined to see the adventure through.
-After many days' hard paddling, the flotilla of canoes swept out on to
-the bosom of the noble lake which perpetuates the name of Champlain, and
-in the evening of the twenty-ninth of July they discovered the Iroquois
-in their canoes, near the point of land where Fort Ticonderoga was long
-afterwards built. The Iroquois made for the shore, and as night was
-falling it was mutually agreed to defer the battle until the following
-morning. The Iroquois threw up a barricade, while Champlain and his
-native allies spent the night in their canoes on the lake.
-
-In the morning Champlain and his two men put on light armour, and the
-whole party landed at some distance from the Iroquois. "I saw the enemy
-go out of their barricade," says Champlain, "nearly two hundred in
-number, stout and rugged in appearance. They came at a slow pace
-towards us, with a dignity and assurance which greatly amused me, having
-three chiefs at their head. Our men also advanced in the same order,
-telling me that those who had three large plumes were the chiefs, and
-that I should do what I could to kill them. I promised to do all in my
-power.
-
-"As soon as we had landed, they began to run for some two hundred paces
-towards their enemies, who stood firmly, not having as yet noticed my
-companions, who went into the woods with some savages. Our men began to
-call me with loud cries; and in order to give me a passage-way, they
-opened in two parts, and put me at their head, where I marched some
-twenty paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about thirty
-paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me,
-as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at us, I
-rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the
-three chiefs. With the same shot two fell to the ground, and one of
-their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded my
-musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favourable for
-them, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have heard
-it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois
-were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly killed,
-although they were equipped with armour woven from cotton thread, and
-with wood which was proof against their arrows. This caused great alarm
-among them. As I was loading again, one of my companions fired a shot
-from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a degree that, seeing
-their chiefs dead, they lost courage, and took to flight, abandoning
-their camp and fort, and fleeing into the woods, whither I pursued them,
-killing still more of them. Our savages also killed several, and took
-ten or twelve prisoners. The remainder escaped with the wounded.
-
-"After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great
-quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their
-armour, which they had left behind that they might run better. After
-feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours
-after, with the prisoners."
-
-On the return journey, the Algonquins tied one of the prisoners to a
-stake, and tortured him with such refinement of cruelty as to arouse the
-disgust and resentment of Champlain. Finally, they allowed him to put
-the wretched Iroquois out of his misery with a musket-ball. Arrived at
-the rapids, the Algonquins and Hurons returned to their own country,
-with loud protestations of friendship for Champlain, while the latter
-continued his journey down to Quebec.
-
-If anything remained to heap the cup of Iroquois resentment to the brim,
-it was provided the following year, when Champlain again lent his
-assistance to the Algonquins and Hurons, and, encountering a war-party
-of Iroquois, a hundred strong, near the mouth of the Richelieu, killed
-or captured every one of them. The day was to come when the tables
-would be turned with a vengeance, when the war-cry of the Iroquois would
-be heard under the walls of Montreal and Quebec, and the death of each
-of the hundred warriors avenged a hundredfold.
-
-But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu is not limited to Indian wars,
-or the conflict between Indian and French. In later years it was to
-become the road of war between white and white, between New England and
-New France, and again between the revolted colonists of New England and
-the loyal colonists of Canada. On the very spot where Champlain and his
-Algonquins had defeated the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years later
-another conflict took place, curiously similar in some respects, though
-different enough in others. Again one side fought behind a barricade,
-while the other gallantly rushed to the assault, and again the defeat
-was overwhelming; but there the resemblance ends. Behind the
-impregnable breastwork at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with his three or
-four thousand French; without stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand
-British regulars and Colonial militia. Abercrombie's one and only idea
-was to carry the position by assault, and throughout the long day he
-hurled regiment after regiment up the deadly slope, only to see them
-mown down by hundreds and thousands before the breastwork. Champlain's
-victory was one of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm's was one of
-skill over stupidity.
-
-Seventeen years after the battle of Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more
-became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with
-his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back
-from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led
-up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of
-the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than
-the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton
-successfully defended England's northern colony consisted of
-French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf
-Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the
-Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the
-pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned
-into channels of peaceful commerce.
-
-
-
-
- V
-
-
- THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT
-
-
- That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell
- The seething horrors of its watery hell!
- Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,
- Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep
- The tortured floods, drifting from side to side
- In furious vortices.
- KIRBY.
-
-
-
-Father Louis Hennepin, in his _New Discovery of a Vast Country in
-America_, gives the earliest known description of the river and falls of
-Niagara. "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there is a vast
-and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and
-astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its
-Parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but
-we may as well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this of
-which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet
-with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League
-broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above
-this Descent that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while
-endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able
-to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down
-headlong above Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall is compounded
-of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping
-along the middle of it. The Waters which Fall from this vast height, do
-foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an
-outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the Wind
-blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above
-fifteen Leagues off. The River Niagara having thrown itself down this
-incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues
-together, to the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity: But having
-passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two
-Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac."
-
-This same year, 1678, when Hennepin visited the great falls, La Salle,
-with his lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy with preparations for
-their western explorations, and in these the Niagara River was to play
-an important part. It was about the middle of November when La Motte,
-with Father Hennepin and sixteen men, sailed from Fort Frontenac
-(Kingston) in a little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and the cold of
-the autumn," says Hennepin, "were then very violent, insomuch that our
-crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel. This oblig'd us to keep
-our course on the north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves under the
-coast against the north-west wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in
-great danger, a couple of leagues off shore, where they were obliged to
-lie at anchor all night. The wind coming round to the north-east,
-however, they managed to continue their voyage, and arrived safely at an
-Iroquois village called Tajajagon, where Toronto stands to-day. They
-ran their little ship into the mouth of the Humber, where the Iroquois
-came to barter Indian corn, and gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the
-marvellous inventions of the white men. Contrary winds and trouble with
-the ice kept them there until the fifth of December, when they crossed
-the lake to the mouth of the Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's
-Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine River Niagara, into which
-never any such Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there Te Deum, and
-other prayers, to return our thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous
-voyage." After examining the river as far as Chippewa Creek, La Motte,
-Hennepin and the men set to work to build a cabin, surrounded by
-palisades, two leagues above the mouth of the river. The ground was
-frozen, and hot water had to be used to thaw it out before the stakes
-could be driven in. The Iroquois, who according to Hennepin had been
-very friendly on their arrival at the mouth of the river, presenting
-them with fish, imputing their good fortune in the fisheries to the
-white men, and examining with interest and astonishment the "great
-wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious when they saw the strangers
-building a fortified house on what they considered peculiarly their own
-territory. La Motte and Hennepin went off to the great village of the
-Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to obtain their consent to the building of
-the fort, but without much success. Soon after their departure, La
-Salle and Tonty reached the Seneca village, on their way from Fort
-Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive, or more fortunate than his
-lieutenant, La Salle secured permission not only for the fortified post
-at the mouth of the river, but also for a much more important
-undertaking which he had planned, the building of a vessel at the upper
-end of the Niagara River, to be used in connection with his western
-explorations.
-
-During the winter the necessary material for the _Griffin_, as the new
-vessel was to be called, was carried over the long portage to the mouth
-of Cayuga Creek, above the falls, where a dock was prepared and the keel
-laid. La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin to desire him to
-drive the first bolt, but, as he says, his profession obliged him to
-decline the honour. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty
-to finish the work. The Iroquois, in spite of their agreement with La
-Salle, watched the building of the _Griffin_ with jealous
-dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of Frenchmen in a state of
-constant anxiety. Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the
-neighbouring tribes took the majority of them off, and the work was
-pushed forward with redoubled zeal, so that it might be completed before
-their return. The Indians that remained behind were too few to make an
-open attack, but they did their utmost to prevent the completion of the
-ship. One of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the blacksmith and
-tried to kill him, but was driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin
-naively remarks that this, "together with the reprimand he received from
-me," obliged him to be gone. A native woman warned Tonty that an
-attempt would be made to burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas
-tried to starve the French by refusing to sell them corn, and might have
-succeeded but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters, who kept the
-workmen supplied with game from the surrounding forest. Finally, the
-_Griffin_ was launched, amid the shouts of the French and the yelpings
-of the Indians, who forgot their displeasure in the novel spectacle.
-She was towed up the Niagara, and on the seventh of August, 1679, La
-Salle and his men sailed out over the placid waters of Lake Erie, the
-booming of his cannon announcing the approach of the first ship of the
-upper lakes. In the _Griffin_ La Salle sailed through Lakes Eric, St.
-Clair, and Huron, to Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake Michigan
-to the entrance to Green Bay, where some of his men, sent on ahead, had
-collected a quantity of valuable furs. These he determined to send back
-to Canada, to satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors, while he
-continued his voyage to the Mississippi. The _Griffin_ set sail for
-Niagara on the eighteenth of September. She never reached her
-destination, and her fate has remained one of the mysteries of Canadian
-history.
-
-
-
-
- VI
-
-
- THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
-
-
- Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stain
- Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
- Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
- Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
- Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,
- The pines that brood above the roaring foam
- Of La Montague or Des Erables; thine home
- Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
- Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
- And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.
- The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
- The beryl waters that espouse and take
- Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
- In that great bridal journey to the sea.
- LAMPMAN.
-
-
-
-While Champlain was in Paris, in 1612, a young man, one Nicolas de
-Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year to visit the tribes of the
-Ottawa, reappeared, with a marvellous tale of what he had seen on his
-travels. He had found a great lake, he said, and out of it a river
-flowing north, which he had descended and reached the shores of the sea,
-where he had seen the wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days' travel
-by canoe, said Vignau, would bring one to the shores of his sea.
-Champlain was delighted, and prepared immediately to follow up this
-important discovery. He returned to Canada, and about the end of May
-1613 set out from Montreal with Vignau and three companions. The rest
-of the story is better told in Parkman's words--and Parkman is here at
-his very best.
-
-"All day they plied their paddles, and when the night came they made
-their campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east glowed with
-tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose
-jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven. Beneath
-the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of
-burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling in the face of day, hung
-like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched
-the dead top of the hemlock, and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy
-beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a
-fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a
-dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the
-awakened wilderness.
-
-"The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course.
-Soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth
-floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the
-falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering
-woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the
-Chaudiere barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down
-its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude
-with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage."
-
-While the Indians threw an offering into the foam as an offering to the
-Manitou of the cataract, Champlain and his men shouldered their canoes
-and climbed over the long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake of the
-Chaudiere, now Lake Des Chenes. Past the Falls of the Chats and a long
-succession of rapids they made their way, until at last, discouraged by
-the difficulties of the river, they took to the woods, and made their
-way through them, tormented by mosquitoes, to the village of Tessouat,
-one of the principal chiefs of the Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to
-his country.
-
-Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes, and a great deal of
-speech-making followed. Champlain asked for men and canoes to conduct
-him to the country of the Nipissings, through whom he hoped to reach the
-North Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked dubious. They had no love
-for the Nipissings, and preferred to keep Champlain among themselves.
-Finally, at his urgent solicitation, they agreed, but as soon as he had
-left the lodge they changed their minds. Champlain returned and
-upbraided them as children who could not hold fast to their word. They
-replied that they feared that he would be lost in the wild north
-country, and among the treacherous Nipissings.
-
-"But," replied Champlain, "this young man, Vignau, has been to their
-country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have
-said."
-
-"Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the
-Nipissings?"
-
-"Yes," he replied, "I have been there,"
-
-"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well
-that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again
-every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been
-when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your
-chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He
-ought to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our
-enemies."
-
-Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but finally broke down and confessed
-his treachery. This "most impudent liar," as Champlain calls him, seems
-to have had no more substantial motive for his outrageous fabrication
-than vanity and the love of notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his
-presence, and in bitter disappointment retraced his steps to Montreal.
-
-From the days of Champlain to the close of the period of French rule,
-and for many years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as the main
-thoroughfare from Montreal to the great west. Up these waters
-generation after generation of fur-traders made their way, their canoes
-laden with goods, to be exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine,
-the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca, for skins brought in by all the
-surrounding tribes. Long before the first settler came to clear the
-forest and make a home for himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed
-to the shouts of French _voyageurs_ and Indian canoe-men, and the gay
-songs of Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling under a hot
-midsummer sun, and many a long and toilsome portage, were lightened by
-the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma boule," or the tender refrain of
-"A la claire fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs became in time a
-link between the old days of the fur-trade and the later period of the
-lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many years ago that one might sit
-on the banks of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings, and, as the
-mighty rafts of logs floated past, catch the familiar refrain, softened
-by distance:
-
- Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
- En roulant ma boule roulant,
- En roulant ma boule.
-
-
-
-
- VII
-
-
- THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
-
-
- But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,
- Unequal to the chase,
- Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,
- No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
- And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,
- The savage shout, and mighty bison tramp
- Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.
- MAIR.
-
-
-
-In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near
-the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake
-Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the
-North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the
-main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of
-white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la
-Verendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the
-whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Verendrye and
-his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of
-the Asiliboiles, as La Verendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees
-with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing
-his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the
-dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Verendrye
-had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his
-purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the
-discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his
-way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the
-south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers
-behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the
-city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west.
-Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men
-built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this
-outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for
-an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a
-village of Assiniboines on the way, La Verendrye arrived on the banks of
-the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing
-appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as
-possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne
-in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer
-brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of
-three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded
-astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white
-men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time
-with the Mandans, La Verendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of
-his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information
-obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects
-of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La
-Verendrye's later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long
-ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest,
-but lies outside the present subject.
-
-Returning to the Red River of the North, and spanning the interval in
-time to the close of the eighteenth century, we find another party of
-white men making their way up its muddy waters. This "brigade" of
-fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge of a famous Nor'-Wester
-known as Alexander Henry, whose voluminous journals were resurrected
-from the archives of the Library of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago.
-Henry gives us an admirably full picture of the Red River country and
-its human and other inhabitants, as they were in his day. One can see
-the long string of heavily laden canoes as they forced their way slowly
-up the current of the Red River, paddles dipping rhythmically to the
-light-hearted chorus of some old Canadian _chanson_. At night the camp
-is pitched on some comparatively high ground, fires are lighted, kettles
-hung, and the evening meal despatched. Then the men gather about the
-camp-fires, fill their pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story.
-They turn in early, however, for the day's paddling has been long and
-heavy, and they must be off again before daylight on the morrow. So the
-story runs from day to day.
-
-They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine, and Henry notes the ruins of La
-Verendrye's old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg will appreciate
-his feeling references to the clinging character of the soil about the
-mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain had turned it into a kind of
-mortar that adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every step we raise
-several pounds of it."
-
-These were the days when the buffalo roamed in vast herds throughout the
-great western plains. One gets from Henry's narrative some idea of
-their almost inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red River, the
-country seemed alive with them. The "beach, once a soft black mud into
-which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the
-numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and
-torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in
-places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn
-away." As the brigade nears the point where the international boundary
-crosses the Red River, an immense herd is seen, "commencing about half a
-mile from the camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the
-river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving southward slowly,
-and the meadow seemed as if in motion."
-
-One further glimpse from Henry's Journal will serve to give some idea of
-life on the banks of the Red River at the beginning of the last century.
-Henry is describing the "bustle and noise which attended the
-transportation of _five_ pieces of trading goods" from his own fort to
-one of the branch establishments.
-
-"Antoine Payet, guide and second in command, leads the van, with a cart
-drawn by two horses and loaded with his private baggage, cassettes,
-bags, kettles, etc. Madame Payet follows the cart with a child a year
-old on her back, very merry. Charles Bottineau, with two horses and a
-cart loaded with one and a half packs, his own baggage, and two young
-children, with kettles and other trash hanging on to it. Madame
-Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her back, scolding and tossing it
-about. Joseph Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem and calumet
-in his hand; Madame Dubord follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch
-with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe, with another cart and
-horses, loaded with two pieces of goods and with baggage belonging to
-Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot, and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste
-Brisebois follows with only his gun on his shoulder and a fresh-lighted
-pipe in his mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like Brisebois, with gun
-and pipe, puffing out clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the greatest
-smoker in the North-West, has nothing but pipe and pouch. These three
-fellows, having taken a farewell dram and lighted fresh pipes, go on
-brisk and merry, playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois, with a young
-mare, the property of Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking, an
-old worsted bag (madame's property), some squashes and potatoes, a small
-keg of fresh water, and two young whelps howling. Next goes Livernois'
-young horse, drawing a _travaille_ loaded with his baggage and a large
-worsted _mashguemcate_ belonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears
-Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling a
-_travaille_ loaded with a bag of flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a
-small keg of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel Langlois, who
-is master of the band, now comes on leading a horse that draws a
-_travaille_ nicely covered with a new-painted tent, under which his
-daughter and Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this covering
-or canopy has a pretty effect in the caravan, and appears at a great
-distance in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up the rear of the human
-beings, following the _travaille_ with a slow step and melancholy air,
-attending to the wants of her daughter, who, notwithstanding her
-sickness, can find no other expressions of gratitude to her parents than
-by calling them dogs, fools, beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a
-long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs, some for game, and others
-of no use whatever, except to snarl and destroy meat. The total forms a
-procession nearly a mile long, and appears like a large band of
-Assiniboines."
-
-To the uninitiated, it may be explained that a _cassette_ is a box for
-carrying small articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian pipe; a
-_travaille_ is a primitive species of conveyance, consisting of a couple
-of long poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog, as the case may be,
-and the other trailing on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway hold the
-poles together, and serve as a foundation for whatever load, human or
-otherwise, it is intended to carry. _Mashguemcate_ is a species of bag,
-a general receptacle for odds and ends.
-
-
-
-
- VIII
-
-
- THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE
-
-
- I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land
- Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height,
- Uprearing crests all starry-diademed
- Above the silver clouds.
- LAUT.
-
-
-
-There was a man in the western fur-trade who felt that other things were
-better worth while than the bartering of blankets and beads for
-beaver-skins. His heart responded to the compelling cry of the unknown,
-and one bright June day, in the year 1789, he set forth in quest of
-other worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought
-to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty
-river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and
-outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians,
-whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose
-course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller
-might hope to navigate its waters and live.
-
-Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life,
-listened eagerly to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian character
-to make due allowances for exaggerations; but had all that he heard been
-true, the prospect of danger would only have whetted his appetite for
-exploration. From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, the way
-lay clear, and he launched his canoe, manned by four Canadian
-_voyageurs_, while his Indian interpreters and hunters followed in a
-second. To Great Slave Lake they were on familiar waters, but beyond
-all was conjecture.
-
-To appreciate the magnitude of Mackenzie's undertaking, one must bear in
-mind that his object was to trace the mighty river that afterward bore
-his name to its mouth. He had no certain knowledge where it might
-empty--perhaps into the Arctic, possibly into the Pacific. In any case
-it involved a long journey, with all sorts of possible difficulties,
-human and natural; and as he must travel light, with only a limited
-supply of provisions, it was essential that he should go and return in
-one season--the very short season of these far northern latitudes. The
-natives whom he questioned ridiculed the idea of descending the
-Mackenzie to its outlet and returning the same season. They assured him
-that it would take him the entire season to go down; that winter would
-overtake him before he could begin the return journey; and that he would
-certainly perish of cold or starvation, even if he escaped the hostile
-tribes of the lower waters of the river.
-
-Mackenzie was confident that the journey could be made in the season,
-but to succeed they must travel at top speed. He had picked men with
-him, and it was fortunate that he had, for the pace was almost killing.
-Half-past three in the morning generally saw them in the canoes and off
-for a long day's hard paddling. One day they paddled steadily from
-half-past two in the morning until six in the evening, except short
-stops for meals, covering seventy-two miles in spite of a head wind.
-
-When they reached Great Slave Lake, they found it almost entirely
-covered with ice, though it was now the ninth of June. Coming down Slave
-River they had been tortured with mosquitoes and gnats, and the trees
-along the banks were in full leaf. This violent change was
-characteristic of the north. Five precious days were lost waiting for
-the ice to move, so that they might cross the lake. At last a westerly
-wind opened a passage, and after some perilous adventures they made the
-northern shore. Coasting slowly to the westward, about the end of the
-month they rounded the point of a long island, and Mackenzie found
-himself on the great river. The current increased as they travelled
-down stream, and it was possible to make good progress.
-
-On they went, day after day. July 1st they passed the mouth of what the
-Indians called the River of the Mountain, afterward known as the Liard,
-where Fort Simpson was built many years later. As they proceeded, it
-became clear to Mackenzie that the river down which he was paddling must
-empty into the Arctic--but would it be possible to reach the ocean and
-return to Fort Chipewyan that season? The men were beginning to get
-discouraged, and it required all Mackenzie's enthusiasm and strength of
-purpose to keep them to the strenuous task. The tribes they met as they
-went north--Slaves and Dog-ribs and Hare Indians--did not prove as
-ferocious as they had been represented, but they one and all described
-the dangers of the river below as stupendous. The _voyageurs_ grumbled,
-but did not openly rebel. As for the Indians of Mackenzie's party, they
-were in open terror; expected at every turn of the river to come upon
-some of the fearful monsters of which the Slaves or Dog-ribs had warned
-them, and were only kept from deserting by Mackenzie's overmastering
-will. As they approached the mouth of the river, another terror was
-added--fear of meeting the Eskimos, for Indian and Eskimo were at deadly
-enmity. Altogether, the plucky explorer had troubles enough.
-
-On the second of July he came within sight of the Rocky Mountains, whose
-glistening summits the Indians called _Manetoe aseniah_, or
-spirit-stones, and the following day he camped at the foot of a
-remarkable hill, constantly referred to in the narratives of Sir John
-Franklin, Richardson, and other later explorers, as the "Rock by the
-River Side." There is an admirable drawing of the rock, by Kendall, in
-the narrative of Franklin's second voyage.
-
-A few days later Mackenzie passed the mouth of Bear River, draining that
-huge reservoir, Great Bear Lake, whose discovery remained for later
-explorers to accomplish, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles
-below he came to the Sans Sault Rapids--the fearful waterfall against
-which the natives had warned him. As a matter of fact it can be safely
-navigated at almost any season of the year.
-
-Another thirty miles brought the explorer to the afterward famous
-Ramparts of the Mackenzie. Here the banks suddenly contract to a width
-of five hundred yards, and for several miles the travellers passed
-through a gigantic tunnel, whose walls of limestone rose majestically on
-either side to a height of from one hundred and twenty-five to two
-hundred and fifty feet.
-
-At last they reached the delta of the river, and it was well that they
-were so near their destination, for the Indians were thoroughly
-demoralised and the _voyageurs_ dispirited, provisions were running
-perilously low, and the short northern summer was rapidly drawing to its
-close. On July 12th the party emerged from the river into what seemed
-to Mackenzie to be a lake, but which was really the mouth of the river.
-The following day confirmation of this came with the rising tide, which
-very nearly carried off the men's baggage while they slept. Paddling
-over to an island, which he named Whale Island, to commemorate an
-exciting chase after a school of these enormous animals the previous
-day, Mackenzie erected a post, on which he engraved the latitude of the
-spot, his own name, the number of persons he had with him in the
-expedition, and the time spent on the island.
-
-After a fruitless attempt to get in touch with the Eskimo, Mackenzie
-turned his face to the south, and, after a comparatively uneventful
-journey, arrived at Fort Chipewyan on September 12th, after a voyage of
-one hundred and two days. He had explored one of the greatest rivers of
-America, from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic, and he had added to the
-known world a territory greater than Europe. Nor was this all, for
-Mackenzie's journey to the Arctic was but the introduction to his even
-more difficult, and more momentous, expedition of three years later,
-over the mountains to the shores of the Pacific. This, however, does not
-lie within the compass of the present sketch.
-
-
-
-
- BOYLE, SON AND WATCHURST
- PRINTERS,
- 3-5 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.
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