Chapter I: Cartier and the St. Lawrence

“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.”

—HON. T. D’ARCY MCGEE.

Almost four hundred years ago, when bluff King Hal ruled over Merry England and Francis over Sunny France, there were strange stories told in the ports of the west of England and the north of France of lands away to the Westward. The voyage of Columbus was the talk of Europe, and while the Spaniards were joyfully telling how he had come to the edge of a great new world which would give them a new route to the marvellous East with all its treasures, John Cabot, of the port of Bristol, the pioneer of English adventurers, sailed off to the west and it is likely saw the continent itself as soon as did Columbus. Both Columbus and Cabot discovered islands first, Columbus on his way to the west, Cabot after he had passed along the coast.

So, from the northern country of England, as well as from the southern land of Spain, the men of the seaports talked of nothing as much as the great land over the sea. It was but natural that the hardy mariners of the northern French ports should join in the search, and for nearly half a century vessels manned by the more adventurous spirits visited the cod banks of Newfoundland and brought back cargoes of fish.

One can picture the interest that would be aroused in a port like Bristol in England or St. Malo or Dieppe in France when a vessel came back to harbour after an absence of many months and the mariners spun their tales of adventure to an eager audience. It was in this kind of an atmosphere, hearing these stories and wishing that he would grow old quickly so that he too could go and see these lands, that Jacques Cartier grew up. He was a clever and ambitious boy and when he became a master mariner had made such a reputation that the King sent for him to discuss the possibility of finding an opening in the coast of America in the vicinity of Newfoundland, which was then thought to be but a projection of the eastern coast of Asia. There is no doubt that Cartier had made trips to the fishing banks many times in company with his fellow fishermen of Brittany, whose enterprise is preserved to us in the name of Cape Breton.

King Francis was anxious that France should have a share in the great discoveries that so far had been made by England and by Spain. Indeed, the whole land had been claimed by the King of Spain and Francis is said to have been so annoyed by this statement that he exclaimed:

“I should like to see the clause in our father Adam’s will which bequeathed to him this fine heritage.”

It was on an April day in 1534 that Cartier set sail in two ships of 60 tons each to find what was beyond the shores known to the sailors, and in the hope that he would be able to penetrate to India and the treasures of the East by a shorter route. On his way out, and in what are known now as the Straits of Belle Isle, he passed a great ship which had sailed from Rochelle, thus proving that those straits and the adjacent waters were known to the French mariners.

This group represents a Seneca family clustered about the door-yard of their hunting lodge, each individual being engaged in his allotted duties. The old father, who no longer goes to war (indicated by his clothing and hair), is bringing in a fawn. The mother is busy skiving a dry deer skin, while the daughter is cutting strips of venison for “jerking.” The elder son is a hunter and warrior and the younger son is burning down a tree which obstructs the yard. The wad of clay about the tree trunk confines the flames. The exterior of the hunting cabin is shown on the left.

The scene depicts Canandaigua lake with Ganundewa, the sacred hill of the Senecas, in the distance.

The time is early morning and the season midspring.

The purpose of this group is to depict a Seneca family during the hunting season. The activities represented show the utility of the deer as a source of raw material. Deer meat was a favorite food, the skin furnished leather for mats, bags, clothing and thongs. The antlers and bones were used for tool material, the jaws for scrapers, the hoofs for ornaments and the hair for stuffing cushions. The group also faithfully represents the various costumes ornamented with hair embroidery.]

Cartier and his ships kept on westward, and we can imagine his feelings when they passed from the cold straits where doubtless he had seen icebergs, into a part of what is now the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the heat of July was so oppressive that he called it the Bay of Chaleur (heat), a name preserved to this day. On these shores they found gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries and roses growing in abundance and the rivers were full of salmon. They reached what we call Gaspé on July 24th, and at once raised a great cross with a shield on which were the lilies of France and “Vive le Roi de France.”

The Indians (for Cartier thought and hoped that he was on the road to India) were friendly, and Cartier persuaded two sons of the chief to go back to France with him. Being unprovided for a longer stay and fearful of the stormy weather, he set sail for home and entered the harbour of St. Malo early in September.

For a person of his imagination and daring and with the two Indian princes to show to the court of France, there were no difficulties in getting ready an expedition for the next year, and in July, 1535, he left St. Malo with three small vessels. One can picture the excitement in that seaport town when the vessels weighed anchor and stood out to sea, vessels commissioned by the King and commanded by a son of St. Malo who had proved his worth already, and who had on board the evidence of his discoveries in the persons of the Indian princes now on their way back home with him.

In August he was in the great Gulf, and aided by the knowledge of these princes, he sailed boldly on until he saw the banks drawing together and he realized that he was going out of the gulf into a great river. They stopped at the narrows where Quebec now stands and met the Indian chief, Donnaconna, in his village of Stadacona, which in the language of the Huron-Iroquois, means “wing,” the formation of land between the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers. This chief they saluted as the Lord of Canada, the chief of the village or collection of huts. This is the first time we meet the word “Canada,” a collection of huts, for Cartier had taken possession of the country as New France.

Nearly four hundred years afterwards, from the same port went forth great vessels bearing tens of thousands of troops from Canada to help old France against the ruthless invader.[1]

Cartier was told of the great river which stretched on for miles and that after many days’ journey there was a large town. He gave the river the name “St. Lawrence,” and up it he made his way, astonished at the beauty and grandeur of the ever-changing scene. And in those days it must have been wonderful, for he tells us that he was impressed with the great trees on the banks, the oak, the walnut, birch and willow and with the vines heavy with grapes. It was September, and even to this day with so many of those features gone, it would be difficult anywhere to find a more impressive and beautiful journey than from the ancient Quebec to the almost as ancient Montreal, when autumn tints the trees.

It was in the last days of this autumn month that he entered the expansion of the river, which is now called Lac St. Pierre, so named nearly a century afterwards by Champlain and known to many to-day by Drummond’s famous poem.[2]

Landing on October 2nd he found the well-built town of Hochelaga, and was welcomed by the inhabitants, the first white man they had ever seen. The reception must have been impressive to both parties, and was made still more so by the Indians taking Cartier up on the great hill to which he gave the name of Mount Royal, and from which he looked over fields of maize and beans and peas and wild fruits, with the silver river winding its way among the beautiful foliage of the autumn, and away in the distance the faint outline of what now are known as the Adirondacks of New York State and the Green Mountains of Vermont. His men were full of wonder and it is interesting to read that what attracted them most was “a great pile of rats, which live in the water and are as large as rabbits and are wonderfully good to eat.”[3]

He returned to Quebec, where he built huts in which to spend the winter. Unaccustomed to so severe a climate and not well provisioned, disease broke out and so many of his men died that when spring came and he set sail for France he had to abandon one of his vessels, “La Petite Hermine.”

Cartier had a story worth telling. Whereas Columbus had touched the New World and Cabot had sailed along its shores, Cartier had penetrated a thousand miles into the continent—“Up the greatest river without comparison that is known to have ever been seen,” as Cartier told the King, and when he stood on Mount Royal on that October day he was the only white man in all that country now known as Canada and the United States of America. It makes one think of another great adventurer who, at almost the same time, upon the same continent, is depicted as standing “silent upon a peak in Darien.”[4]

This was Cortez of Spain and so we have the French and the Spanish in the North American continent.

To confirm his story and to illustrate the transfer of the land to France, Cartier took back with him Donnaconna and two other chiefs who were presented to the King. They really were kidnapped, and sad to tell they did not live to return to their own land.

When Cartier reached France there were serious political troubles which prevented the authorities from acting at once, and so it was not until 1538 that Francis took up the question of New France overseas. He organized an expedition of which Lord Roberval was to be chief and Cartier captain-general, and with a crew recruited mainly from the prisons Cartier left St. Malo in 1541, sailed up the St. Lawrence, explored the rapids (afterwards known as La Chine), spent a miserable winter and returned to St. Malo a disappointed man. The Indians had lost faith in him, for when they welcomed him and asked for their chiefs, whose loss they had felt keenly, Cartier told them that the chiefs had stayed in France, whereas they had died. Superseded at home by political favourites, and distrusted in New France by the natives, Cartier retired from the sea, his name passes from history and the first chapter of the history of New France comes to an end.