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From the first voyage of Cartier onwards, Canada was called intermittently New France, and its possibilities were not lost sight of by a few intelligent Frenchmen on account of the fur trade. Amongst these was Amyard de Chastes, at one time Governor of Dieppe, who got into correspondence with the adventurers who had settled as fur traders at Tadoussac, prominent amongst whom was Du Pont-Gravé. De Chastes dispatched with Pont-Gravé a young man whose acquaintance he had just made, SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN.[1] This was the man who, more than any other, created French Canada.

Champlain had had already a most adventurous life. He was born about 1567, at Brouage, in the Saintonge, opposite to the Island of Héron, on the coast of western France. From his earliest years he had a passion for the sea, but he also served as a soldier for six years. His father had been a sea captain, and his uncle as an experienced navigator was commissioned by the King of Spain to transport by sea to that country the remainder of the Spanish soldiers who had been serving in Brittany. The uncle took his nephew with him. Young Champlain when in Spain managed to ingratiate himself so much with the Spanish authorities that he was actually commissioned as a captain to take a king's ship out to the West Indies. No sooner did he reach Spanish America than he availed himself of the first chance to explore it. For two years he travelled over Cuba, and above all Mexico. He visited the narrowest part of Central America and conceived the possibility of making a trans-oceanic canal across the Panama isthmus.

When he got back to France he placed before Henry IV a report on Spanish Central America, together with a project for making a canal at Panama. Henry IV was so pleased with his work and enterprise that he gave him a pension and the title of Geographer to the King. Shortly afterwards he met Governor de Chastes at Dieppe, and was by him sent out to Canada. The ship which carried Champlain, PONT-GRAVÉ,[2] the SIEUR DE MONTS,[3] and other French adventurers (together with two Amerindian interpreters whom Pont-Gravé had brought from Canada to learn French) arrived at Tadoussac on May 24, 1603.

Champlain lost no time in commencing his explorations. Tadoussac was at the mouth of an important river, called by the French the Saguenay, a name which they also applied to the mysterious and wonderful country through which it flowed in the far north; a country rich in copper and possibly other precious metals. Champlain ascended the Saguenay River for sixty miles as far as the rapids of Chicoutima. The Amerindians whom he met here told him of Lake St. John, lying at a short distance to the west, and that beyond this lake and the many streams which entered it there lay a region of uplands strewn with other lakes and pools; and farther away still began the sloping of the land to the north till the traveller sighted a great arm of the salt sea, and found himself amongst tribes (probably the Eskimo) who ate raw flesh, and to the Indians appeared absolute savages.[4] This was probably the first allusion, recorded by a European, to the existence of Hudson's Bay, that huge inlet of the sea, which is one of the leading features in the geography of British North America.

The Montagnais Indians round about Tadoussac received Champlain with great protestations of friendship, and at the headquarters of their principal chief or "Sagamore" celebrated this new friendship and alliance with a feast in a very large hut. The banquet, as usual, was preceded by a long address from the Sagamore in answer to the description of France, given by one of the Indian interpreters. The address was accompanied by the solemn smoking of tobacco, and at every pause in this grave oration the natives present shouted with one voice: "Ho! ho! ho!" The repast consisted of elk's meat (which struck the Frenchmen as being like beef), also the flesh of bear, seal, beaver, and wild fowl. There were eight or ten stone boilers or cauldrons full of meats in the middle of the great hut, separated each six feet from each other, and each one having its own fire. Every native used a porringer or vessel made of birch bark. When the meat was cooked a man in authority distributed it to each person. But Champlain thought the Indians ate in a very filthy manner. When their hands were covered with fat or grease they would rub them on their own heads or on the hair of their dogs. Before the meat was cooked each guest arose, took a dog, and hopped round the boilers from one end of the great hut to the other. Arriving in front of the chief, the Montagnais Indian feaster would throw his dog violently to the ground, exclaiming: "Ho! ho! ho!" after which he returned to his place.

At the close of the banquet every one danced, with the skulls of their Iroquois enemies slung over their backs. As they danced they slapped their knees with their hands, and shouted: "Ho! ho! ho!" till they were out of breath.

The huts of these Indians were low and made like tents, being covered with the bark of the birch tree. An opening about a foot of the top was left uncovered to admit light and to allow the smoke to escape. Though low, the huts were sometimes quite large, and would accommodate ten families. These slept higgledy-piggledy on skins, with their dogs amongst them. The dogs in appearance were something like what we know as Eskimo dogs, and also rather resembled the Chinese chow, with broad heads and rather short muzzles, prick ears, and a tail inclined to curl over the back. "All these people have a very cheerful disposition, laughing often, yet at the same time they are somewhat phlegmatic. They talk very deliberately, as if desiring to make themselves well understood, and, stopping suddenly, they reflect for a long time, when they resume their discourse."

They were agile, well-proportioned people, who in the summertime went about nearly naked, but in the winter were covered with good furs of elk, otter, beaver, bear, seal, and deer. The colour of their skin was usually a pale olive, but the women for some reason made themselves much darker-skinned than the men by rubbing their bodies with pigments which turned them to a dark brown. At times they suffered very much from lack of food, being obliged then to frequent the shore of the river or gulf to obtain shellfish. When pressed very hard by famine they would eat their dogs (their only domestic animal) and even the leather of the skins with which they clothed themselves. In the autumn they were much given to fishing for eels, and they dried a good deal of eel flesh, to last them through the winter. During the height of the winter they hunted the beaver, and later on the elk. Though they ate wild roots and fruits whenever they could obtain them, they do not seem to have cultivated any grain or vegetables. In the early spring they were sometimes dying of hunger, and looked so thin and haggard that they were mere walking skeletons. They were then ready to eat carrion that was putrid, so that it is little wonder that they suffered much from scurvy.

Yet the rivers and the gulf abounded in fish, and as soon as the waters were unlocked by the melting of the ice in April, the surviving Indians rapidly grew fat and well, and of course the late summer and the autumn brought them nuts (hickory and other kinds of walnut, and hazel nuts), wild cherries, wild plums, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, currants,[5] cranberries, and grapes.

Champlain observed amongst them for the first time the far-famed Amerindian snowshoes, which he compares very aptly for shape to a racquet used in tennis.

Champlain next visited the site of Stadacona, but there was no longer any settlement of Europeans at that place, nor were the native Amerindians the descendants of the Hurons that had received Jacques Cartier. For the first time the name Quebec (pronounced Kebek) is applied to this point where the great River St. Lawrence narrows before dividing to encircle the Isle of Orleans. In fact, Quebec meant in the Algonkin speech a place where a river narrows; for a tribe of the great Algonkin family, the Algonkins, allied to the tribes of Maine and New Brunswick, had replaced the Hurons as the native inhabitants of this region.

On the shore of Quebec he noticed "diamonds" in some slate rocks—no doubt quartz crystals. Proceeding on up the River St. Lawrence he observed the extensive woods of fir and cypress (some kind of Thuja or Juniper), the undergrowth of vines, "wild pears", hazel nuts, cherries, red currants and green currants, and "certain little radishes of the size of a small nut, resembling truffles in taste, which are very good when roasted or boiled". As they advanced towards the interior the country became increasingly mountainous on the south (the green mountains of New Hampshire), and was more and more beautiful—"the pleasantest land yet seen". Landing on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, west of the entrance of the river of the Iroquois (the Richelieu), he found magnificent forests, which, besides the trees already mentioned, included oaks, chestnuts, maples, pines, walnut-like nut trees,[6] aspens, poplars, and beeches; with climbing hops and vines, strawberries trailing over the ground, and raspberry canes and currant bushes "growing in the thick grass". These splendid woods on the islands and banks of the broad river were full of game: elks,[7] wapiti deer, Virginian deer, bears, porcupines, hares, foxes, beavers, otters, and musk rats, besides many animals he could not recognize.

At last his little expedition in "a skiff and canoe" had to draw into the bank, warned by the noise that they were approaching a great fall of water—the La Chine or St. Louis Rapids. Champlain wrote: "I saw, to my astonishment, a torrent of water descending with an impetuosity such as I have never before witnessed. … It descends as if in steps, and at each descent there is a remarkable boiling, owing to the force and swiftness with which the water traverses the fall, which is about a league in length. … The territory on the side of the fall where we went overland consists, so far as we saw it, of very open wood, where one can go with his armour without much difficulty."

From the Algonkin Indians in the neighbourhood of these St. Louis Rapids, and also from those living near Quebec, Champlain obtained a good deal of geographical information to add to his own observations. He was given an idea, more or less correct, of Lake Ontario, the Falls of Niagara, Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and perhaps also of Lake Superior, a sea so vast, said the Amerindians, that the sun set on its horizon. This sheet of water, Champlain calculated, must be 1200 miles distant to the west, and therefore identical with the "Mer du sud" (Pacific Ocean), which all North-American explorers for three centuries wished to reach.

After collecting much information about possible copper mines in the regions north and south of the Lower St. Lawrence, and of silver[8] in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and a terrible story which he more than half believed about a monster of prodigious size, the Gougou,[9] Champlain set sail for France at the end of August, 1603.

In April, 1604, Champlain accompanied the Sieur de Monts (who had succeeded the dead Amyard de Chastes as head of a chartered fur-trading association) in a fresh expedition to North America, together with a hundred and twenty artisans and several noblemen. They were to occupy the lands of "Cadie" (Acadia, Nova Scotia), Canada, and other places in New France. De Monts thought Tadoussac and Quebec too cold in wintertime, and preferred the sunnier east coast regions. He aimed indeed at colonizing what is now New England.

On the way to Nova Scotia, the expedition was nearly wrecked on Sable Island, about one hundred and twenty miles south of Cape Breton Island, and noticed there the large red cattle run wild from the bulls and cows landed on Sable Island by the Portuguese some sixty years earlier. (The Portuguese of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries deserved well of humanity for the generous way in which they left cattle, goats, pigs, and rabbits to run wild on desert islands and serve as provender for shipwrecked mariners like Robinson Crusoe.) Champlain also speaks of the "fine large black foxes" which he and other voyagers noticed on Sable Island. How they came there is a mystery, unless the island had once been part of the mainland.

This same Sable Island had been the scene of an extraordinary experiment at the end of the previous century. In 1598 the Marquis de la Roche, given a commission to colonize New France, sailed in a small ship for North America with sixty convicts from French prisons as colonists. He landed them on Sable Island, and went away to look for some good site for his colony. But then a storm arose, and his little ship was literally blown back to France. The convicts, abandoned thus, built themselves shelters out of the driftwood of wrecks; killed and ate the cattle and caught fish. They made themselves warm clothes out of the skins of the seals which frequented the island coast in thousands. But these convicts quarrelled and fought among themselves so fiercely that when at last a ship from Normandy came to take them away, there were only twelve left—twelve shaggy men with long tangled hair and beards; and, a legend says, in addition a Franciscan monk who had been landed on the island with them as a kind of missionary or chaplain, and who had been so heartbroken at their bloody quarrels and horrible deeds that when the Norman ship arrived to take the castaways back to France, the Franciscan refused to go with them, believing himself to be dying and wishing to end his life undisturbed. So he was left behind. But after the ship had sailed away he slowly mended, grew well and strong, and cultivated eagerly his little garden. For food he ate the whelks, mussels, and oysters that were so abundant on the shore. Occasionally ships (then as now) were wrecked on Sable Island in stormy weather, and the good monk ministered to the mariners who reached the shore. Also he was visited, ever and again, by the Breton fishing boats, which brought him supplies of necessaries and the bread and wine for celebrating Mass. Long after his death his spirit was thought to haunt the desolate island.

Champlain and his companions passed on from Sable Island to the south-east coast of Nova Scotia, noticing as they landed here and there the abundance of rabbits[10] and sea birds, especially the Great Auk, of which they killed numbers with sticks, cormorants (whose fishy eggs they ate with enjoyment), puffins, guillemots, gulls, terns, scissorbills, divers, ospreys, buzzards, and falcons; and no doubt the typical American white-tailed sea eagles, ravens, ducks, geese, curlews, herons, and cranes. Here and there they found the shore "completely covered with sea wolves"—seals, of course, probably the common seal and the grey seal. Of these they captured as many as they wanted, for the seals, like most of the birds, were quite unafraid of man.

They then explored the Bay of Fundy, and, after zig-zagging about, decided to fix on the harbour of St. John's (New Brunswick) as the site for their colony. The future capital of New France, therefore, was begun on La Sainte Croix (Dochet) Island, near the mouth of the wonderful tidal estuary of the Uigudi (Ouygoudy) River.

Here they passed the winter, but suffered so badly from scurvy[11] that, when in the spring of 1605 Du Pont Gravé arrived from Brittany with supplies, the remnant of the colony was removed to the opposite coast of Nova Scotia to Port Royal (afterwards named by the English Annapolis[12]). The French seem to have fallen in love with this place from the very first. Nevertheless here they suffered from scurvy during the winter as elsewhere. Before moving over here, however, Champlain, together with De Monts, had explored the west of New England south of New Brunswick as far as Plymouth, just south of Boston.

Off the coast of Maine (Richmond's Island) they encountered agricultural Amerindians of a new tribe, the Penobskot probably, who cultivated a form of rank narcotic tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), which they called Petun. (A variety of this has produced the handsome garden flower Petunia, whose Latin name is derived from this native word Petun.) They also grew maize or Indian corn, planting very carefully three or four seeds in little mounds three feet apart one from the other, the soil in between being kept clear of weeds. The American farmers of to-day cannot adopt any better method.

The islands round about Portland (Maine) were matted all over with wild red currants, so that the eye could scarcely discern anything else. Attracted by this fruit, clouds of wild pigeons had assembled[13]. They manifested hardly any fear of the French, who captured large numbers of them in snares, or killed them with guns. The natives of southern Maine fled with dismay on sighting the French ships, for they had never before seen sailing vessels, but later on they timidly approached the French ships in a canoe, then landed and went through a wild dance on the shore to typify friendliness. Champlain took with him some drawing paper and a pencil or crayon, together with a quantity of knives and ship's biscuit. Landing alone, he attracted the natives towards him by offering them biscuits, and having gathered them round him (being of course as much unable to understand their speech as they were French), he proceeded to ask questions by means of certain drawings, chiefly the outlines of the coast. The savages at once seized his idea, and taking up his pencil drew on the paper an accurate outline of Massachusetts Bay, adding also rivers and islands unknown to the French. They went on by further intelligent signs to supply information. For instance, they placed six pebbles at equal distances to intimate that Massachusetts Bay was occupied by six tribes and governed by as many chiefs. By drawings of growing maize and other plants they intimated that all these people lived by agriculture.

Champlain thought Massachusetts (in his first voyage) a most attractive region in the summer, what with the blue water of the enclosed arms of the sea, the lofty forest trees, and the fields of Indian corn and other crops.

When these French explorers reached the harbour of Boston, the islands and mainland were swarming with the native population. The Amerindians were intensely interested in the arrival of the first sailing vessel they had ever seen. Although it was only a small barque, its size was greater than any canoe known to them. As it seemed to spread huge white wings and to glide silently through the water without the use of paddles or oars, it filled them with surprise and admiration. They manned all their canoes[14] and came out in a flotilla to express their honour and reverence for the wonderful white men. But when the French took their leave, it was equally obvious that the natives experienced a sense of relief, for they were disquieted as well as filled with admiration at the arrival of these wonderful beings from an unknown world.

Champlain describes the wigwams or native huts as being cone-shaped, heavily thatched with reeds, with an opening at the top of the roof for the smoke to escape. Inside the huts was a low bed raised a foot from the ground and made of short posts driven into the ground, with a surface made of boards split from trees. On these boards were laid either the dressed skins of deer or bear, or thick mattresses made of reeds or rushes. The beds were large enough for several people to lie on. Champlain describes the huts as being full of fleas, and likewise the persons of the nearly naked Indians, who carried these fleas out with them into the fields when they were working, so that the Frenchmen by stopping to talk to the natives became covered with fleas to such an extent that they were obliged to change their clothes.

In the fields were cultivated not only maize, but beans similar to the beans grown by the natives of Brazil, vegetable marrows or pumpkins, Jerusalem artichokes[15], radishes, and tobacco. The woods were filled with oaks, walnut trees[16], and the red "cedar" of North America, really a very large juniper, the foliage of which in the summertime often assumes a reddish colour, together with the trunk. This Virginian juniper or "red cedar" is now quite a common tree in England. In warm weather it exhales a delicious aromatic scent.

All these natives of the Massachusetts coast were described by Champlain as being almost naked in the summertime, wearing at most a small piece of leather round the waist, and a short robe of spun hemp which hung down over the shoulders. Their faces were painted red, black and yellow. The men pulled out any hairs which might come on the chin, and thus were beardless. They were armed with pikes, clubs, bows, and arrows. The pikes were probably made of wood with the ends hardened by being burnt to a point in the fire, and the arrow tips were made of the sharp termination of the tail of the great king-crab[17].

These Massachusetts "Indians" described to Champlain a wonderful bird which at some seasons of the year they caught in snares and ate. This Champlain at once guessed was the wild turkey, now, of course, quite extinct in that region. This wild turkey of the eastern half of North America (including southern Canada) was quite a distinct form from the Mexican bird, which last is the origin of our domestic turkey.

In July, 1606, as De Monts had not returned from France, and the little colony at Port Royal was without supplies, they decided to leave two Frenchmen in charge of the local chief of the Mikmak Indians, and find their way along the coast to Cape Breton, where they might get a fishing vessel to take them back to France. But after travelling in an open boat—a chaloupe—round the coast of Nova Scotia they met another small boat off Cape Sable, under the charge of the secretary of De Monts, and learnt that Lieutenant-General DE POUTRINCOURT[18] (one of the great names amongst the pioneers of Canada, and the man who had really chosen Port Royal for the French headquarters at Nova Scotia) had already returned from France with fresh supplies. Consequently, Champlain and his companions returned to Port Royal, and all set to work with eagerness to develop the settlement. Champlain relates in his book how he created vegetable gardens, trout streams and ponds, and a reservoir of salt water for sea fish; but he was soon off again on a fresh journey of exploration, because De Monts was not satisfied with Nova Scotia on account of the cold in winter. Accordingly Champlain examined the whole coast round the Bay of Fundy, and down to Cape Cod, and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. But in this region, already visited in past times by French, Spanish, and English ships, they found the natives treacherous and hostile. An unprovoked attack was made on the French after they landed, and several of the seamen were killed with arrows.

On the 24th of May, 1607, a small barque of six or seven tons burden (fancy crossing the wide Atlantic from Brittany to Nova Scotia in a ship of that size at the present day!) arrived outside Port Royal from France, with an abrupt notification that De Monts' ten years' monopoly and charter were cancelled by Henry IV, and that all the colony was to be withdrawn and brought back to France. Henry IV took this action simply because De Monts attempted to make his monopoly a real one,[19] and stop the ships of fur traders who were trading with the Amerindians of Cape Breton without his licence. These fur traders of Normandy then complained bitterly that because De Monts was a Protestant he was allowed not only to have this monopoly, but to endanger the spiritual welfare of the savages by spreading his false doctrines! So King Henry IV, volatile and capricious, like most of the French kings, cancelled a charter which had led to such heroic and remarkable results.

The greater part of the little colony had to leave Port Royal and make its way in small boats along the Nova Scotia coasts till they reached Cape Breton Island. Here fishing vessels conveyed them back to Brittany. It was in this boat journeying along the coast of Nova Scotia that Champlain discovered Halifax Harbour, then called by the Indian name of Shebuktu. As they passed along this coast with its many islands, they feasted on ripe raspberries, which grew everywhere "in the greatest possible quantity".

Poutrincourt, however, had succeeded in taking back with him samples of the corn, wheat, rye, barley, and oats which had been so successfully grown on the island of Sainte Croix and at Port Royal, and also presented to that monarch five brent-geese[20] which he had reared up from eggs hatched under a hen. The king was so delighted at these presents that he once more veered about and gave to De Monts the monopoly of the fur trade for one more year, in order to enable him to renew his colonies in New France.

The Sieur de Monts was again appointed by Henry IV Lieutenant-General in New France. The latter engaged Champlain as his lieutenant, and also sent out Du Pont Gravé in command of the second vessel, as head of the trading operations. This time, on the advice of Champlain, the expedition made its way directly to the St. Lawrence River, stopping first at Tadoussac, where Du Pont Gravé proceeded to take very strong measures with the Basque seamen, who were infringing his monopoly by trading with the natives in furs. Apparently they were still allowed to continue their whale fishery.

Once more Champlain heard from the Montagnais Indians of the great Salt Sea to the north of Saguenay, in other words, the southern extension of Hudson's Bay; and in his book he notes that the English in these latter years "had gone thither to find their way to China". However, he kept his intent fixed on the establishment of a French colony along the St. Lawrence, and may be said to have founded the city of Quebec (the site of which was then covered with nut trees) on the 4th of July, 1608. Then his enterprise was near being wrecked by a base conspiracy got up between a surgeon and a number of French artisans, who believed that by seizing and killing Champlain, and then handing over the infant settlement to the Spanish Basques, they might enable these traders and fishermen with their good strong ships to overcome Du Pont Gravé, and seize the whole country. Naturally (they believed) the Basques would reward the conspirators, who would thus at a stroke become rich men. They none of them wished to go to France, but would live here independent of outside interference. A conspirator, however, revealed the plot to Champlain as he was planting one of the little gardens which he started as soon as he had been in a place a few days. He went about his business very discreetly, arrested all the leading conspirators, gave them a fair trial, had the ringleader executed by Pont Gravé, and sent three others back to France. After this he settled down at Quebec for the winter, taking care, however, in the month of October, to plant seeds and vines for coming up in the spring.

In the summer of 1609 Champlain, apparently with the idea of thus exploring the country south of the St. Lawrence, decided to accompany a party of Algonkins and Hurons from Georgian Bay and the neighbourhood of Montreal, who were bent on attacking the Iroquois confederacy in the Mohawk country at the headwaters of the Hudson River. He was accompanied by two French soldiers—Des Marais and La Routte—and by a few Montagnais Indians from Tadoussac.

The Hurons[21] were really of the same group (as regards language and descent) as the Iroquois (Irokwá), but in those days held aloof from the five other tribes who had formed a confederacy[22] and alliance under the name of Ongwehonwe—"Superior Men". The Iroquois (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Kayugas, and Senekas) dominated much of what is now New York State, and from the mountain country of the Adirondaks and Catskills descended on the St. Lawrence valley and the shores of Lakes Ontario and Huron to rob and massacre.

The route into the enemy's country lay along the Richelieu River and across Lake Champlain to its southern end, in sight of the majestic snow-crowned Adirondak Mountains. On the way the allies stopped at an island, held a kind of review, and explained their tactics to Champlain. They set no sentries and kept no strict watch at night, being too tired; but during the daytime the army advanced as follows: The main body marched in the centre along the warpath; a portion of the troops diverged on either side to hunt up food for the expedition; and a third section was told off for "intelligence" work, namely, they ran on ahead and roundabout to locate the enemy, looking out especially along the rivers for marks or signals showing whether friends or enemies had passed that way. These marks were devised by the chiefs of the different tribes, and were duly communicated to the war leaders of tribes in friendship or alliance, like our cipher codes; and equally they were changed from time to time to baffle the enemy. Neither hunters nor main body ever got in front of the advance guard, lest they should give an alarm. Thus they travelled until they got within two days or so of the enemies' headquarters; thenceforward they only marched by night, and hid in the woods by day, making no fires or noise, and subsisting only on cooked maize meal.

At intervals the soothsayers accompanying the army were consulted for signs and omens; and when the war-chiefs decided on their plan of campaign they summoned all the fighting men to a smooth place in a wood, cut sticks a foot long (as many as there were warriors), and each leader of a division "put the sticks in such order as seemed to him best, indicating to his followers the rank and order they were to observe in battle. The warriors watched carefully this proceeding, observing attentively the outline which their chief had made with the sticks. Then they would go away and set to placing themselves in such order as the sticks were in. This manoeuvre they repeated several times, and at all their encampments, without needing a sergeant to maintain them in the proper order they were able to keep accurately the positions assigned to them" (Champlain).

The Hurons who were accompanying Champlain frequently questioned him as to his dreams, they themselves having a great belief in the value of dreams as omens and indications of future events. One day, when they were approaching the country of the Iroquois, Champlain actually did have a dream. In this he imagined that he saw the Iroquois enemies drowning in a lake near a mountain. Moved to pity in his dream he wished to help them, but his savage allies insisted that they must be allowed to die. When he awoke he told the Amerindians of his dream, and they were greatly impressed, as they regarded it as a good omen.

Near the modern town of Ticonderoga the Hurons and Algonkins of Georgian Bay and Ottawa met a party of Iroquois, probably of the Mohawk tribe. The Iroquois had built rapidly a stockade in which to retreat if things should go badly with them, but the battle at first began in the old heroic style with as much ceremony as a French duel. First the allies from the St. Lawrence asked the Iroquois what time it would suit them to begin fighting the next day; then the latter replied: "When the sun is well up, if you don't mind? We can see better then to kill you all." Accordingly in the bright morning the Hurons and Algonkins advanced against the circular stockade of the Iroquois, and the Iroquois marched out to fight in great pomp, their leaders wearing plumed headdresses. With this exception both parties fought quite naked, and armed only with bows and arrows.

"I marched twenty paces in advance of the rest" (wrote Champlain) "till I was within about thirty paces of the Iroquois. … 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 afterwards. I had loaded my musket with four balls. When they saw I had shot so favourably for them, they (the Algonkins and Hurons) raised such loud cries that one could not have heard it thunder.

"Meantime the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly killed, though they were equipped with armour woven from copper thread and with wood, which was proof against their arrows."

Whilst Champlain was loading to fire again one of his two companions fired a shot from the woods, whereupon the Iroquois took to flight, abandoning their camp and fort. As they fled they threw off their armour of wooden boards and cotton cloth.

As to the way in which the Hurons tortured their Iroquois prisoners, Champlain writes of one instance.

"They commanded him (the prisoner) to sing, if he had courage, which he did, but it was a very sad song." The Hurons kindled a fire, and when it was well alight they each took a brand from the blaze, the end of which was red-hot, and with this burnt the bodies of their prisoners tied to stakes. Every now and then they stopped and threw water over them to restore them from fainting. Then they tore out their finger nails and applied fire to the extremities of the fingers. After that they tore the scalps off their heads, and poured over the raw and bleeding flesh a kind of hot gum. Then they pierced the arms of the prisoners near the wrists, and drew up their sinews with sticks inserted underneath, trying to tear them out by force, and, if failing, cutting them. One poor wretch "uttered such terrible cries that it excited my pity to see him treated in this manner, yet at other times he showed such firmness that one would have said he suffered scarcely any pain at all".

In this case Champlain, seeing that the man could not recover from his injuries, drew apart and shot him dead, "thus putting an end to all the tortures he would have suffered".

But the savage Hurons were not yet satisfied. They opened the corpse and threw its entrails into the lake. Then they cut off head, arms, and legs, and cut out the heart; this they minced up, and endeavoured to force the other prisoners to eat it.

With those of his allies who were Montagnais Indians from Tadoussac, Champlain returned to that place. As they neared the shore the Montagnais women undressed themselves, jumped into the river, and swam to the prows of the canoes, from which they took the heads of the slain Iroquois. These they hung about their necks as if they had been some costly chain, singing and dancing meanwhile.

However, in spite of these and other horrors, Champlain had "separated from his Upper Canadian allies with loud protestations of mutual friendship", promising to go again into their country and assist them with continued "fraternal" relations.

From this expedition Champlain learned much regarding the geography of eastern North America, and he brought back with him to France, to present to King Henry IV, two scarlet tanagers—one of the commonest and most beautiful birds of the eastern United States—a girdle of porcupine quills made from the Canadian porcupine, and the head of a gar-pike caught in Lake Champlain.[23]

On Champlain's return from France in 1610 (he and other Frenchmen and Englishmen of the time made surprisingly little fuss about crossing the North Atlantic in small sailing vessels, in spite of the storms of spring and autumn) he found the Iroquois question still agitating the minds of the Algonkins, Montagnais, and Hurons. Representatives of these tribes were ready to meet this great captain of the Mistigosh or Matigosh[24] (as they called the French), and implored him to keep his promise to take part in another attack on the dreaded enemy of the Adirondak heights. Apparently the Iroquois (Mohawks) this time had advanced to meet the attack, and were ensconced in a round fortress of logs built near the Richelieu River.[25] The Algonkins and their allies on this expedition were armed with clubs, swords, and shields, as well as bows and arrows. The swords of copper(?) were really knife blades attached to long sticks like billhooks. Before the barricade, as usual, both parties commenced the fight by hurling insults at each other till they were out of breath, and shouting "till one could not have heard it thunder". The circular log barricade, however, would never have been taken by the Algonkins and their allies but for the assistance of Champlain and three or four Frenchmen, who with their musketry fire at short range paralysed the Iroquois. Champlain and one other Frenchman were wounded with arrows in the neck and arm, but not seriously. The victory of the allies was followed by the usual torture of prisoners, which Champlain made a slight—only slight—attempt to prevent.

But results far more serious arose from these two skirmishes with the Iroquois in 1609 and 1610. The Confederacy of the Five Nations (afterwards six) realized that they had been attacked unprovoked by the dominant white men of the St. Lawrence, called by the Montagnais Mistigosh, and by the Iroquois Adoresetūi ("men of iron", from their armour). They became the bitter enemies of the French, and tendered help first to the Dutch to establish themselves in the valley of the Hudson, and secondly to the English. In the great Colonial wars of the early eighteenth century the Iroquois were invaluable allies to the British forces, Colonial and Imperial, and counted for much in the struggle which eventually cost France Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, the two Canadas, and Louisiana. On the other hand, the French alliance with the Hurons, Algonkins, and Montagnais, begun by this brotherhood-in-arms with Champlain, secured for France and the French such widespread liking among the tribes of Algonkin speech, and their allies and friends, that the two Canadas and much of the Middle West, together with Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, became French in sympathy without any war of conquest. When the French dominion over North America fell, in 1759, with the capture of Quebec by Wolfe's army, tribes of Amerindians went on fighting for five years afterwards to uphold the banner and the rule of the beloved French king.

On Champlain's next visit to Canada, in 1610, he handed over to the Algonkin Indians a French youth named Étienne Brulé (see p. 88), to be taught the Algonkin language (the use of which was spread far and wide over north-east America), and, further, sent a Huron youth to France to be taught French. Between 1611 and 1616 he had explored much of the country between Montreal (the foundations of which city he may be said to have laid on May 29, 1611, for his stockaded camp is now in the centre of it) and Lakes Huron and Ontario, especially along the Ottawa River, that convenient short cut (as a water route) between the St. Lawrence at Sault St. Louis (Montreal) and Lakes Huron and Superior. With short portages you can get in canoes from Montreal to the waters of Hudson Bay, or to Lake Winnipeg and the base of the Rocky Mountains.

In exploring this "River of the Algonkins" (as he called it), Champlain was nearly drowned between two rocks, and much hurt, from over bravery and want of knowledge of how to deal with a canoe on troubled water; but on June 4, 1613, he stood on the site of the modern city of Ottawa—the capital of the vast Canadian Dominion—and gazed at the marvellous Rideau or Curtain Fall, where the Rideau River enters the Ottawa. But the air was resonant with the sound of falling water. Three miles above the falls of the Gatineau and the Rideau, the main Ottawa River descended with a roar and a whirl of white foam and rainbow-tinted mist into the chasm called the Chaudière or Kettle. On a later occasion he describes the way in which the Algonkins propitiated the Spirit of the Chasm:

"Continuing our way, we came to the Chaudière Falls, where the savages carried out their customary ceremony. After transporting their canoes to the foot of the fall they assemble in one spot, where one of them takes up a collection on a wooden platter, into which each person puts a bit of tobacco. The collection having been made, the plate is placed in the midst of the troop, and all dance about it, singing after their style. Then one of the captains makes an harangue, setting forth that for a long time they have been accustomed to make this offering, by which means they are ensured protection against their enemies, that otherwise misfortune would befall them from the evil spirit. This done, the maker of the harangue takes the plate and throws the tobacco into the midst of the cauldron (the chasm of foaming water), whereupon they all together raise a loud cry. These poor people are so superstitious, that they would not believe it possible for them to make a prosperous journey without observing this ceremony at this place; for sometimes their enemies (Iroquois) await them at this portage, not venturing to go any farther on account of the difficulty of the journey. Consequently they are occasionally surprised and killed by the Iroquois at this place (the south bank of the Ottawa)."

Above the Chaudière Champlain met the Algonkin chief, Tessouat, and thus described the burial places of his tribe:

"On visiting the island I observed their cemeteries, and was struck with wonder as I saw sepulchres of a shape like shrines, made of pieces of wood fixed in the ground at a distance of about three feet from each other, and intersecting at the upper end. On the intersections above they place a large piece of wood, and in front another upright piece on which is carved roughly, as would be expected, the figure of the male or female interred. If it is a man, they add a shield, a sword attached to a handle after their manner, a mace, and bow and arrows. If it is a chief, there is a plume on his head, and some other matachia or embellishment. If it is a child, they give it a bow and arrow, if a woman or girl, a boiler, an earthen vessel, a wooden spoon, and an oar. The entire sepulchre is six or seven feet long at most, and four wide; others are smaller. They are painted yellow and red, with various ornaments as neatly done as the carving. The deceased is buried with his dress of beaver or other skins which he wore when living, and they lay by his side all his possessions, as hatchets, knives, boilers, and awls, so that these things may serve him in the land whither he goes; for they believe in the immortality of the soul, as I have elsewhere observed. These carved sepulchres are only made for the warriors, for in respect to others they add no more than in the case of women, who are considered a useless class, accordingly but little is added in their case."

In the summer of 1615 Champlain, returning from France, made his way up the Ottawa River, and, by a short portage, to Lake Nipissing, thence down French River to the waters of Lake Huron. On the banks of the French River he met a detachment of the Ottawa tribe (of the Algonkin family). These people he styled the Cheveux Relevés, because the men's hair was gathered up and dressed more carefully and becomingly on the top of the head than (he says) could at that time be done by a hairdresser in France. This arrangement of the hair gave the men a very handsome appearance, but here their toilet ended, for they wore no clothes whatever (in the summertime), making up for this simplicity by painting their faces in different colours, piercing their ears and nostrils and decorating them with shell beads, and tattooing their bodies and limbs with elaborate patterns.

These Ottawas carried a club, a long bow and arrows, and a round shield of dressed leather, made (wrote Champlain) "from the skin of an animal like the buffalo".[26] The chief of the party explained many things to the white man by drawing with a piece of charcoal on the white bark of the birch tree. He gave him to understand that the present occupation of his band of warriors was the gathering of blueberries, which would be dried in the sun, and could then be preserved for eating during the winter.

From French River, Champlain passed southwards to the homeland of the Hurons, which lay to the east of what Champlain called "the Fresh Water Sea" (Lake Huron). This country he describes in enthusiastic terms. The Hurons, like the other Iroquois tribes (and unlike the hunting races to the north of them), were agriculturists, and cultivated pumpkins, sunflowers,[27] beans and Indian corn.

The Hurons persuaded Champlain to go with them to attack the Iroquois tribe of the Senekas (Entuhónorons) on the south shores of Lake Ontario. On the way thither he noticed the abundance of stags and bears, and, near the lake, of cranes, white and purple-brown.[28]

On the southern shores of the lake[29] were large numbers of chestnut trees, "whose fruit was still in the burr. The chestnuts are small but of a good flavour." The southern country was covered with forests, with very few clearings. After crossing the Oneida River the Hurons captured eleven of the Senekas, four women, one girl, three boys, and three men. The people had left the stockade in which their relations were living to go and fish by the lake shore. One of the Huron chiefs—the celebrated Iroquet, who had been so much associated with Champlain from the time of his arrival—proceeded at once to cut off the finger of one of these women prisoners. Whereupon Champlain, firmer than in years gone by, interposed and reprimanded him, pointing out that it was not the act of a warrior such as he declared himself to be, to conduct himself with cruelty towards women "who had no defence but their tears, so that one should treat them with humanity on account of their helplessness and weakness". Champlain went on to say that this act was base and brutal, and that if he committed any more of such cruelties he, Champlain, "would have no heart to assist or favour them in the war". To this Iroquet replied that their enemies treated them in the same manner, but that since this was displeasing to the Frenchmen he would not do anything more to women, but he would not promise to refrain from torturing the men.

However, in the subsequent fighting which occurred when they reached the six-sided stockade of the Senekas (a strong fortification which faced a large pond on one side, and was surrounded by a moat everywhere else except at the entrance), the Hurons and Algonkins showed a great lack of discipline. Champlain and the few Frenchmen with him, by using their arquebuses, drove the enemy back into the fort, but not without having some of their Indian allies wounded or killed. Champlain proposed to the Hurons that they should erect what was styled in French a cavalier—a kind of box, with high, loopholed sides, which was erected on a tall scaffolding of stout timbers. This was to be carried by the Hurons to within a pike's length of the stockade. Four French arquebusiers then scrambled up into the cavalier and fired through the loopholes into the huts of the Seneka town. Meantime the Hurons were to set fire, if possible, to the wooden stockade. They managed the whole business so stupidly that the fire produced no effect, the flames being blown in the opposite direction to that which was desired. The brave Senekas threw water on to the blazing sticks and put out the fire. Champlain was wounded by an arrow in the leg and knee. The reinforcement of the five hundred Hurons expected by the allies did not turn up. The Hurons with Champlain lost heart, and insisted on retreating. Only the dread of the French firearms prevented the retreat being converted into a complete disaster. Whenever the Senekas came near enough to get speech with the French they asked them "why they interfered with native quarrels".

Champlain being unable to walk, the Hurons made a kind of basket, similar to that in which they carried their wounded. In this he was so crowded into a heap, and bound and pinioned, that it was as impossible for him to move "as it would be for an infant in his swaddling clothes". This treatment caused him considerable pain after he had been carried for some days; in fact he suffered agonies while fastened in this way on to the back of a savage.

He was afterwards obliged to pass the winter of 1615–6 in the Huron country. At that time it swarmed with game. Amongst birds, there were swans, white cranes, brent-geese, ducks, teal, the redbreasted thrush (which the Americans call "robin"), brown larks (Anthus), snipe, and other birds too numerous to mention, which Champlain seems to have brought down with his fowling-piece in sufficient quantities to feed the whole party whilst waiting for the capture of deer on a large scale.

Meanwhile, many of the Indians were catching fish, "trout and pike of prodigious size". When they desired to secure a large number of deer, they would make an enclosure in a fir forest in the form of the two converging sides of a triangle, with an open base. The two sides of these traps were made of great stakes of wood closely pressed together, from 8 to 9 feet high; and each of the sides was 1000 yards long. At the point of the triangle there was a little enclosure. The Hurons were so expeditious in this work that in less than ten days these long fences and the "pound" or enclosure at their convergence were finished. They then started before daybreak and scattered themselves in the woods at a considerable distance behind the commencement of these fences, each man separated from his fellow by about 80 yards. Every Huron carried two pieces of wood, one like a drumstick and the other like a flat, resonant board. They struck the flat piece of wood with the drumstick and it made a loud clanging sound. The deer who swarmed in the forest, hearing this noise, fled before the savages, who drove them steadily towards the converging fences. As they closed up, the Hurons imitated very cleverly the yapping of wolves. This frightened the deer still more, so that they huddled at last into the final enclosure, where they were so tightly packed that they were completely at the men's mercy. "I assure you," writes Champlain, "there is a singular pleasure in this chase, which takes place every two days, and has been so successful that in thirty-eight days one hundred and twenty deer were captured. These were made good use of, the fat being kept for the winter to be used as we do butter, and some of the flesh to be taken to their homes for their festivities."

Champlain himself, in the winter of 1615, pursuing one day a remarkable bird "which was the size of a hen, had a beak like a parrot and was entirely yellow, except for a red head and blue wings, and which had the flight of the partridge"—a bird I cannot identify—lost his way in the woods. For two days he wandered in the wilderness, sustaining himself by shooting birds and roasting them. But at last he found his way back to a river which he recognized, and reached the camp of the Hurons, who were extremely delighted at his return. Had they not found him, or had he not come back of himself, they told him that they could never again have visited the French for fear of being held responsible for his death.

By the month of December of this year (1615) the rivers, lakes, and ponds were all frozen. Hitherto, Champlain had had to walk when he could not travel in a canoe, and carry a load of twenty pounds, while the Indians carried a hundred pounds each. But now the water was frozen the Hurons set to work and made their sledges. These were constructed of two pieces of board, manufactured from the trunks of trees by the patient use of a stone axe and by the application of fire. These boards were about 6 inches wide, and 6 or 7 feet long, curved upwards at the forward end and bound together by cross pieces. The sides were bordered with strips of wood, which served as brackets to which was fastened the strap that bound the baggage upon the sledge. The load was dragged by a rope or strap of leather passing round the breast of the Indian, and attached to the end of the sledge. The sledge was so narrow that it could be drawn easily without impediment wherever an Indian could thread his way over the snow through the pathless forests.

The rest of the winter and early spring Champlain spent alone, or in company with Father Joseph Le Caron (one of the Recollet missionaries), visiting the Algonkin and Huron tribes in the region east of Lake Huron. He has left this description of the modern country of Simcoe, the home, three hundred years ago, of the long-vanished Hurons[30]; and gives us the following particulars of their home life. The Huron country was a pleasant land, most of it cleared of forest. It contained eighteen villages, six of which were enclosed and fortified by palisades of wood in triple rows, bound together, on the top of which were galleries provided with stores of stones, and birch-bark buckets of water; the stones to throw at an enemy, and the water to extinguish any fire which might be put to the palisades. These eighteen villages contained about two thousand warriors, and about thirty thousand people in all. The houses were in the shape of tunnels, and were thatched with the bark of trees. Each lodge or house would be about 120 feet long, more or less, and 36 feet wide, with a 10-foot passage-way through the middle from one end to the other. On either side of the tunnel were placed benches 4 feet high, on which the people slept in summer in order to avoid the annoyance of the fleas which swarmed in these habitations. In winter time they slept on the ground on mats near the fire. In the summer the cabins were filled with stocks of wood to dry and be ready for burning in winter. At the end of each of these long houses was a space in which the Indian corn was preserved in great casks made of the bark of trees. Inside the long houses pieces of wood were suspended from the roof, on to which were fastened the clothes, provisions, and other things of the inmates, to keep them from the attacks of the mice which swarmed in these villages. Each hut might be inhabited by twenty-four families, who would maintain twelve fires. The smoke, having no proper means of egress except at either end of the long dwelling, and through the chinks of the roof, so injured their eyes during the winter season that many people lost their sight as they grew old.

"Their life", writes Champlain, "is a miserable one in comparison with our own, but they are happy amongst themselves, not having experienced anything better, nor imagining that anything more excellent could be found."

These Amerindians ordinarily ate two meals a day, and although Champlain and his men fasted all through Lent, "in order to influence them by our example", that was one of the practices they did not copy from the French.

The Hurons of this period painted their faces black and red, mixing the colours with oil made from sunflower seed, or with bears' fat. The hair was carefully combed and oiled, and sometimes dyed a reddish colour; it might be worn long or short, or only on one side of the head. The women usually dressed theirs in one long plait. Sometimes it was done up into a knot at the back of the head, bound with eelskin. The men were usually dressed in deerskin breeches, with gaiters of soft leather. The shoes ("Moccasins") were made of the skin of deer, bears, or beavers. In addition to this the men in cold weather wore a great cloak. The edges of these cloaks would often be decorated with bands of brown and red colour alternating with strips of a whitish-blue, and ornamented with bands of porcupine quills. These, which were originally white or grey in colour, had been previously dyed a fine scarlet with colouring matter from the root of the bed-straw (Galium tinctorum). The women were loaded with necklaces of violet or white shell beads, bracelets, ear-rings, and great strings of beads falling below the waist. Sometimes they would have plates of leather studded with shell beads and hanging over the back.