"Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest;
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway."
The brigade swept on up the Lake of Two Mountains, and though the work was hard, yet the spirit and exhilaration of the way kept up the hearts of the voyageurs and officers, and as one song was ended, another was begun and carried through. Now it was the rollicking chanson, "C'est la Belle Françoise," then the tender "La Violette Dandine," and when inspiration was needed, that song of perennial interest, "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre."
A distance up the Ottawa, however, the scenery changes, and the river is interrupted by three embarrassing rapids. At Carillon, opposite to which was Port Fortune, a great resort for retired fur traders, the labours began, and so these rapids, Carillon, Long Sault, and Chute au Blondeau, now avoided by canals, were in the old days passed by portage with infinite toil. Up the river to the great Chaudière, where the City of Ottawa now stands, they cheerfully rowed, and after another great portage the Upper Ottawa was faced.
The most dangerous and exacting part of the great river was the well-known section where two long islands, the lower the Calumet, and the Allumette block the stream, and fierce rapids are to be encountered. This was the pièce de résistance of the canoe-men's experience. Around it their superstitions clustered. On the shores were many crosses erected to mark the death, in the boiling surges beside the portage, of many comrades who had perished here. Between the two islands on the north side of the river, the Hudson's Bay Company had founded Fort Coulonge, used as a depôt or refuge in case of accident. No wonder the region, with "Deep River" above, leading on to the sombre narrows of "Hell Gate" further up the stream, appealed to the fear and imagination of the voyageurs.
Ballad and story had grown round the boiling flood of the Calumet. As early as the time of Champlain, the story goes that an educated and daring Frenchman named Cadieux had settled here, and taken as his wife one of the dusky Ottawas. The prowling Iroquois attacked his dwelling. Cadieux and one Indian held the enemy at bay, and firing from different points led them to believe that the stronghold was well manned. In the meantime, the spouse of Cadieux and a few Indians launched their canoes into the boiling waters and escaped. From pool to pool the canoe was whirled, but in its course the Indians saw before them a female figure, in misty robes, leading them as protectress. The Christian spouse said it was the "bonne Ste. Anne," who led them out of danger and saved them. The Iroquois gave up the siege. Cadieux's companion had been killed, and the surviving settler himself perished from exhaustion in the forest. Beside him, tradition says, was found his death-song, and this "Lament de Cadieux," with its touching and attractive strain, the voyageurs sang when they faced the dangers of the foaming currents of the Upper Ottawa.
The whole route, with its rapids, whirlpools, and deceptive currents, came to be surrounded, especially in superstitious minds, with an air of dangerous mystery. A traveller tells us that a prominent fur trader pointed out to him the very spot where his father had been swept under the eddy and drowned. The camp-fire stories were largely the accounts of disasters and accidents on the long and dangerous way. As such a story was told on the edge of a shadowy forest the voyageurs were filled with dread. The story of the Wendigo was an alarming one. No crew would push on after the sun was set, lest they should see this apparition.