With the peace that followed the destruction of the Mohawk villages by Tracy and Courcelles, and the influx of a considerable population into Canada, the conditions became more favourable for exploration and the fur trade. The tame and steady life of the farm had little charm for many restless spirits, who had fought for France in the Carignan Regiment. Not a few of them followed the roving Canadian youth into the forest, where they had learned to love the free life of the Indians. The priest, the gentilhomme, and the coureur de bois, each in his way, became explorers of the western wilderness.
From the moment the French landed on the shores of Canada, they seemed to enter into the spirit of forest life. Men of noble birth and courtly associations adapted themselves immediately to the customs of the Indians, and found that charm in the forest and river which seemed wanting in the tamer life of the towns and settlements. The English colonisers of New England were never able to win the affections of the Indian tribes, and adapt themselves so readily to the habits of forest life as the French Canadian adventurer.
A very remarkable instance of the infatuation which led away so many young men into the forest, is to be found in the life of Baron de Saint-Castin, a native of the romantic Bernese country, who came to Canada with the Carignan Regiment during 1665, and established himself for a time on the Richelieu. But he soon became tired of his inactive life, and leaving his Canadian home, settled on a peninsula of Penobscot Bay (then Pentagoët), which still bears his name. Here he fraternised with the Abenaquis, and led the life of a forest chief, whose name was long the terror of the New England settlers. He married the daughter of Madocawando, the implacable enemy of the English, and so influential did he become that, at his summons, all the tribes on the frontier between Acadia and New England would proceed on the warpath. He amassed a fortune of three hundred thousand crowns in "good dry gold," but we are told he only used the greater part of it to buy presents for his Indian followers, who paid him back in beaver skins. His life at Pentagoët, for years, was very active and adventurous, as the annals of New England show. In 1781 he returned to France, where he had an estate, and thenceforth disappeared from history. His son, by his Abenaqui Baroness, then took command of his fort and savage retainers, and after assisting in the defence of Port Royal, and making more than one onslaught on the English settlers of Massachusetts, he returned to Europe on the death of his father. The poet Longfellow has made use of this romantic episode in the early life of the Acadian settlements:
"The warm winds blow on the hills of Spain,
The birds are building and the leaves are green,
The Baron Castine, of St. Castine,
Hath come at last to his own again."
Canadian trapper, from La Potherie.
Year after year saw the settlements almost denuded of their young men, who had been lured away by the fascinations of the fur trade in the forest fastnesses of the west. The government found all their plans for increasing the population and colonising the country thwarted by the nomadic habits of a restless youth. The young man, whether son of the gentilhomme, or of the humble habitant, was carried away by his love for forest life, and no enactments, however severe—not even the penalty of death—had the effect of restraining his restlessness. That the majority of the coureurs de bois were a reckless, dare-devil set of fellows, it is needless to say. On their return from their forest haunts, after months of savage liberty, they too often threw off all restraint, and indulged in the most furious orgies. Montreal was their favourite place of resort, for here were held the great fairs for the sale of furs. The Ottawas, Hurons, and other tribes came from distant parts of the North and West, and camped on the shores in the immediate vicinity of the town. When the fair was in full operation, a scene was represented well worthy of the bold brush of a Doré. The royal mountain, then as now, formed a background of rare sylvan beauty. The old town was huddled together on the low lands near the river, and was for years a mere collection of low wooden houses and churches, all surrounded by palisades. On the fair ground were to be seen Indians tricked out in their savage finery; coureurs de bois in equally gorgeous apparel; black-robed priests and busy merchants from all the towns, intent on wheedling the Indians and bush rangers out of their choicest furs.
The principal rendezvous in the west was Mackinac or Michillimackinac. Few places possessed a more interesting history than this old headquarters of the Indian tribes and French voyageurs. Mackinac may be considered, in some respects, the key of the upper lakes. Here the tribes from the north to the south could assemble at a very short notice and decide on questions of trade or war. It was long the metropolis of a large portion of the Huron and Ottawa nations, and many a council, fraught with the peace of Canada, was held there in the olden times. It was on the north side of the straits that Father Marquette—whose name must ever live in the west—some time in 1671 founded the mission of St. Ignace, where gradually grew up the most important settlement which the French had to the northwest of Fort Frontenac or Cataraqui. The French built a chapel and fort, and the Hurons and Ottawas lived in palisaded villages in the neighbourhood. The coureurs de bois were always to be seen at a point where they could be sure to find Indians in large numbers. Contemporary writers state that the presence of so many unruly elements at this distant outpost frequently threw the whole settlement into a sad state of confusion and excitement, which the priests were at times entirely unable to restrain. Indians, soldiers, and traders became at last so demoralised, that one of the priests wrote, in his despair, that there seemed no course open except "deserting the missions and giving them up to the brandy-sellers as a domain of drunkenness and debauchery."