[3] The Fur-trade of Canada, rather than agriculture or fisheries, was considered its truest source of wealth because it gave immediate returns, and was thought to be inexhaustible. Hence it became the engrossing occupation of the inhabitants. It was granted first to De Monts, then to others who undertook to colonize Canada at their own cost.
WESTWARD BY THE GREAT INLAND WATERWAYS.
"I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be."—Whittier.
From Quebec Champlain pushed on up the river to the island of Montreal, where he established a trading-post. Hither came the Hurons of the lake to barter their furs for French goods. They came by way of Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa. These Indians told the French all about their country, and the way to it. One of them showed Champlain an ingot of copper, and described the way his people refined it from the native ore. Interpreters began to study the Indian dialects, and eager traders to push out farther and farther into the wilderness for the sake of larger gains.
But the route to the west was not without perils which the French found it hard to overcome. Two great rival families of savages were divided from each other by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. Those living north of the river may be included in the general name of Hurons;[1] those on the south were called Iroquois.[2] The two waged perpetual war with each other, drawing to them kindred or tributary tribes. In an evil hour Champlain had taken part with the Hurons, so identifying the French, in the minds of the Iroquois, with their worst enemies.
CHAMPLAIN.
If to natural obstacles be added the enmity of a most valiant people, whose country stretched along the whole southern shore of Lake Ontario, who controlled the portage round the Falls of Niagara, and were undisputed masters of the lake itself, we shall go forward with some idea of the impediments to peaceful exploration and of the consummate folly which had put this stumbling-block in the way of it.