CHAPTER II
QUEBEC AND THE PICTURESQUE MARITIME REGION
The Maritime region of Canada embraces only, strictly speaking, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; although Quebec is sometimes thought of as being included in this historic portion of the Dominion, because of its geographical situation. The city of Quebec has always been a favourite point of pilgrimage, and when Mr. Howells, in his early youth, enshrined it in a half-romantic narrative, as the scene of Their Wedding Journey, its attractions were heightened by his facile and charming pen. The old French city dates back to 1608, and its history, for more than a century and a half, is really the history of Canada as well. All the maritime provinces of Canada take a prominent place in poetic legend and lore as well as in historical associations. When, in 1845, the poet Longfellow wrote his tender and touching, though historically misleading poem, Evangeline, the poem focussed the general attention on Acadia (the modern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), and particular attention on the little village of Grand-Pré, which,
"... distant, secluded still,"
lying in the fruitful valley, invited many excursions of those who delight in pilgrimages to poetic shrines. For
"Plant a poet's word but deep enough,"
and woodland or hill, mountain or shore, are thereby enchanted. The Maritime region, still vocal with the dreams and discoveries of adventurous spirits; where all pledge and prophecy still linger in the air; where impassioned endeavour, long-patient endurance, faith to break a pathway through to untrod regions with some Ulysses to inspire a faith that it is never too late to seek a newer world—how wonderful is the spell this province weaves around the wanderer!
The noble St. Lawrence is a river that fairly fulfils the purposes of a sea, with its kaleidoscopic shore lines, now bold and forbidding, now dreamy and undefined with their fleeting, ethereal beauty; and all the maritime land is pervaded by memories and associations of the brave Cabot who first sighted Nova Scotia on June 24, 1497, the date of the special festa of his native Italy—this festival of San Giovanni, when all Venice is on the Grand Canal in the fleets of gondolas; all Florence illuminated at night, a resplendent spectacle from her surrounding hills and her background of purple amethyst mountains; and when Rome, at night, disports herself in a thousand ways upon the Campagna Mystica. It was a fitting date for Cabot, the Venetian, to discover the new land. Voices unheard by others had called to him; hands, from starry spaces, beckoned and led him on. What was there in the air but
"Winged persuasions and veiled destinies,"
and all the past that came thronging to meet all the future? Cabot, Venetian born, English by adoption, was followed by several other intrepid explorers, and not to insist too much upon chronological order, what a group of wonderful names are associated with all the province of Quebec! Cartier, Champlain, Frontenac; Sir Humphrey Gilbert of the Elizabethan period, whose brave expedition was engulfed by winds and waves and went down in the great deep off Campobello.
"Alas, the land-wind failed.
And ice-cold grew the night,
And never more on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light."