Pioneers in Canada

by Harry Johnston

At last Cartier set sail for the south-west, intending to explore this wonderful river and to reach the kingdom of Canada. According to his understanding of the Amerindian interpreters, the waters of the St. Lawrence flowed through three great states: Saguenay, which was the mountainous Gaspé Peninsula and the opposite coast; Canada, Quebec and its neighbourhood; and Hochelaga, the region between Montreal and Lake Ontario. At the mouth of the Saguenay River, where Tadoussac is now situated, he encountered large numbers of white whales—the Beluga. These are really huge porpoises, allied to the narwhals, but without the narwhal's exaggerated tusk. When he reached the vicinity of the modern Quebec,[5] and his Amerindian interpreters found themselves at their actual home (for they were far away from home on a fishing expedition when he caught them in Gaspé Bay) there was great rejoicing; for they were able to tell their relations of the wonderful country to which they had been across the ocean. Cartier was delighted with the surroundings of "Canada" (Quebec), near which at that time was a large settlement (Stadacona) of Huron Indians under a chief named Donnacona. He decided to lay up his ships here for the winter, and to pursue the rest of his western explorations in his boats.

But the Amerindians for some reason were not willing that he should go any farther, and attempted to scare him from his projects by arranging for three of their number to come down river in a canoe, dressed in dogs' skins, with their faces blackened, and with bisons' horns fastened to their heads. These devils pretended to take no notice of the French, but to die suddenly as they reached the shore, while the rest of the natives gave vent to howlings of despair and consternation. The three devils were pretending to have brought a message from a god to these Hurons of "Canada" that the country up river (Hochelaga) was so full of ice and snow that it would be death for anyone to go there.

However, this made little or no impression on Cartier; but he consented to leave a proportion of his party behind with the chief Donnacona as hostages, and then started up country in his boats with about seventy picked officers and men. On the 2nd of October, 1535, they reached the vicinity of the modern Montreal, the chief settlement of Hochelaga. The Huron town at the foot of the hills was circular in outline, surrounded by a stockade of three rows of upright tree trunks, which rose to its highest point in the middle, where the timbers of the inner and outward sides sloped to meet one another, the height of the central row being about 8 feet above the ground. All round the inside there was a platform or rampart on which were stored heavy stones to be hurled at any enemy who should attempt to scale the fence. The town was entered by only one doorway, and contained about fifty houses surrounding an open space whereon the towns-people made their bonfires. Each house was about 50 feet long by 12 to 15 feet wide. They were roofed with bark, and usually had attics which were storerooms for food. In the centre of each of these long houses there was a fireplace where the cooking for the whole of the house inhabitants was done. Each family had its own room, but each house probably contained five families. Almost the only furniture, except cooking pots, was mats on which the people sat and slept. The food of the people consisted, besides fish and the flesh of beavers and deer, of maize and beans. Cartier at once recognized the maize or Indian corn as the same grain ("a large millet") as that which he had seen in Brazil.

He gives a description of how they made the maize into bread (or rather "dampers", "ashcakes"); but as this is not altogether clear, it is better to combine it with Champlain's description, written a good many years later, but still at a time when the Hurons were unaffected by the white man's civilization. According to both Cartier and Champlain, the women pounded the corn to meal in a wooden mortar, and removed the bran by means of fans made of the bark of trees. From this meal they made bread, sometimes mixing with the meal the beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), which had been boiled and mashed. Or they would boil both Indian corn and beans into a thick soup, adding to the soup blueberries,[6] dried raspberries, or pieces of deer's fat. The meal derived from the corn and beans they would make into bread, baking it in the ashes.

Or they would take the pounded Indian corn without removing the bran, and put two or three handfuls of it into an earthen pot full of water, stirring it from time to time, when it boiled, so that it might not adhere to the pot. To this was added a small quantity of fish, fresh or dry, according to the season, to give a flavour to the migane or porridge. When the dried fish was used the porridge smelt very badly in the nostrils of Europeans, but worst of all when the porridge was mixed with dried venison, which was sometimes nearly putrid! If fish was put into this porridge it was boiled whole in the mealy water, then taken out without any attempt to remove the fins, scales, or entrails, and the whole of the boiled fish was pounded up and put back into the porridge. Sometimes a great birch-bark "kettle" would be filled with water, fish, and meat, and red-hot stones be dropped in till it boiled. Then with a spoon they would collect from the surface the fat and oil arising from the fish or meat. This they afterwards mixed with the meal of roasted Indian corn, stirring it with this fat till they had made a thick soup. Sometimes, however, they were content to eat the young corn-cobs freshly roasted, which as a matter of fact (with a little salt) is one of the most delicious things in the world. Or they would take ears of Indian corn and bury them in wet mud, leaving them thus for two or three months; then the cobs would be removed and the rotted grain eaten with meat and fish, though it was all muddy and smelt horribly. Cartier also noticed that these Huron Indians had melons and pumpkins, and described their wampum or shell money.[7]

From the eminence on which the Huron city stood, Cartier obtained a splendid view of rivers and mountains and magnificent forests, and called the place then and there, in his Norman French, Mont Real, or Royal Eminence, a name which it will probably bear for all time, though the actual city of Montreal lies a few miles below.

Montreal was the limit of Cartier's explorations on this journey. He returned thence to "Canada" or Stadacona, where his men built a fort armed with artillery, and where his ships were anchored. Here he had to stay from the middle of November, 1535, to the middle of April, 1536, his ships being shut in by the ice. The experiences of the French during these five months were mostly unhappy. At first Cartier gave himself up to the collecting of information. He noticed for the first time the smoking of tobacco,[8] and collected information about the products and features of "Canada". The Indians told him of great lakes in the far west, one of which was so vast that no man had seen the end of it. They told him that anyone travelling up the Richelieu River (as it was called sixty years later) would eventually reach a land in the south where in the winter there was no ice or snow, and where fruit and nut trees grew in abundance. Cartier thought that they were talking to him of Florida, but their geographical information can scarcely have stretched so far; they probably referred to the milder regions of New Jersey and Virginia, which would be reached by following southwards the valley of the Hudson and keeping to the lowlands of the eastern United States.

As the winter set in with its customary Canadian severity the real trouble of the French began. They did not suffer from the cold, but they were dying of scurvy. This disease, from which the natives also suffered to some extent, was due to their eating nothing but salt or smoked provisions—forms of meat or fish. They lived, of course, shut up in the fort, and Cartier's fixed idea was to keep the Hurons from the knowledge of his misfortune, fearing lest, if they realized how the garrison was reduced, they might treacherously attack and massacre the rest; for in spite of the extravagant joy with which their arrival had been greeted, the Amerindians—notably the two interpreters who had been to France and returned—showed at intervals signs of disquiet and a longing to be rid of these mysterious white men, whose coming might involve the country in unknown misfortunes. In January and February, also, Donnacona and these two interpreters and many of the Huron men had been absent hunting in the forests, so that there was no one among the Amerindians to whom the French could turn for information regarding this strange disease. At last 25 out of the 112 who had left France were dead, and of the remainder only 10 men, including Cartier, were not grievously ill. Those who were living found it sometimes beyond their strength to bury the dead in the frozen ground, and simply placed their bodies in deep snow. Once or twice, when Cartier left the fort to go out to the ships, he met Domagaya, one of the two interpreters, and found that he also was suffering from this mysterious disease, though not nearly so badly as the French people. On the body of one young man who died of scurvy Cartier and his officers, shuddering, made investigations, opening the corpse and examining the organs to try and find the cause of death. This was on the afternoon of a day on which they had held a solemn service before a statue erected to the Virgin Mary on the shore opposite to the ships. All who were fit to walk went in procession from the fort to the statue, singing penitential psalms and the Litany and celebrating Mass.

Some days after this religious service Cartier met the interpreter, Domagaya, and to his surprise found him perfectly well and strong. He asked him for an explanation, and was told that the medicine which cured this disease was made from the leaves and bark of a tree called ameda.[9] Cartier then ventured to say that one of his servants was sick of this unknown disease, and Domagaya sent for two women, who taught the French people how to make an extract from the balsam fir for drinking, and how to apply the same liquid to the inflamed skin. The effect on the crews was miraculous. In six days all the sick were well and strong.

Then came the sudden spring. Between April 15th and May 1st the ice on the river was all melted, and on the 6th May, 1536, Cartier started from the vicinity of Quebec to return to France. But before leaving he had managed to kidnap Donnacona, the chief of the Huron settlement, and six or seven other Amerindians, amongst them Tainyoanyi, one of the two interpreters who had already been to France. He seized these men, it appears, partly because he wanted hostages and had good reason to fear that the Indians meditated a treacherous attack on his ships before they could get away. He also wished for native witnesses at Court, when he reached France, to testify to the truth of his discoveries, and even more to convince the King of France that there was great profit to be obtained from giving effect to Cartier's explorations. The chief, Donnacona, was full of wonderful stories of the Saguenay region, and of the great lakes to the northwards of Quebec. Probably he was only alluding to the wealth of copper now known to exist in northern Canada, but to Cartier and the other Frenchmen it seemed as though he spoke of gold and silver, rubies, and other precious stones.