The story of Canadian rivers would fill several volumes if one attempted to do justice to such a broad and varied theme. One may only hope, in the few pages that follow, to give glimpses of the story; to suggest, however inadequately, the dramatic and romantic possibilities of the subject; to recall a few of the memories that cling to the rivers of Canada.

CONTENTS

  1. [The Great River of Canada]
  2. [The Mystic Saguenay]
  3. [The River of Acadia]
  4. [The War Path of the Iroquois]
  5. [The River of the Cataract]
  6. [The Highway of the Fur Trade]
  7. [The Red River of the North]
  8. [The Mighty Mackenzie]

By Canadian Streams

I

THE GREAT RIVER OF CANADA

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.

McGEE.

If we abandon ourselves to pure conjecture, we may carry the history of the St. Lawrence back to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when daring Portuguese navigators sailed into these northern latitudes; or to the latter half of the fifteenth century, when the Basque fishermen are said to have brought their adventurous little craft into the Gulf of St. Lawrence; or, if you please, we may push the curtain back to the tenth century and add another variant to the many theories as to the course of the Northmen from Labrador to Nova Scotia. But while this would make a romantic story, it is not history. The Vikings of Northern Europe, and the Portuguese and Basques of Southern Europe, may have sailed the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and may even have entered the estuary of the great river, but there is no evidence that they did, and we must surrender these picturesque myths if we are to build our story upon a tangible foundation.

With the advent of Jacques Cartier, the bluff and fearless mariner of St. Malo, we are upon the solid ground of history. There is nothing vague or uncertain about either the personality or achievements of this Breton captain. He tells his own story, in simple and convincing language. It does not require any peculiar gift of imagination to picture the scene that marks the beginnings of the history of the St. Lawrence. It was upon an autumn day, some three hundred and seventy-four years since. Jacques Cartier, with his little fleet, had searched up and down the coasts of the gulf for the elusive and much-desired passage to the South Seas, but the passage was not there. His Indian guides, Taignoagny and Domagaya, had told him something of the mighty stream--the Great River of Canada--upon whose waters his ships were even now sailing. How almost incredible it must have seemed to him that this vast channel, twenty-five miles across from shore to shore, could be a river, and nothing more! What thoughts must have surged through his brain that here at last was the long-sought passage, the road to golden Cathay! Even when, as he sailed onward, it became certain that this was indeed a river, although a gigantic one, Jacques Cartier still had reason enough to follow its beckoning finger. The Indians said that to explore its upper waters he must take to his boats; but they told him of three several native kingdoms that lay along its banks, and they assured him that its source was so remote that no man had ever journeyed so far. Moreover, it came from the south-west, and there lay, and at no impossible distance, as report had it, the Vermilion Sea. He might well hope to reach that sea by way of the River of Canada. In any event, he determined to try.

A week later the ships were anchored off an island, which Cartier named the Isle of Bacchus, because of the abundance of grapes found upon its shores. Before him rose the forest-clad heights of Cape Diamond, destined to become the key to a Colonial empire, the battling-ground of three great nations, the site of the most picturesque and most romantic city of America. Even at this time the place was of some importance, for here stood the native town of Stadacona, the seat of Donnacona, "Lord of Canada."