Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 02

by Samuel de Champlain

338. Read the 12th of July.

339. This fall is now avoided, and the navigation of the Richelieu secured by a canal connecting Chambly Basin and St. Johns, a distance of about ten miles.

340. It is not entirely certain what island is here referred to. It has been supposed to be the Island of St. Thérèse. But, taking all of Champlain's statements into consideration, the logical inference would be that it is the Isle aux Noix.

341. "These two words were used in Acadie to indicate the jongleur, or sorcerer. The word pilotois, according to P. Biard, Rel. 1611, p. 17, came from the Basques, the Souriquois using the word autmoin, which Lescarbot writes aoutmoin, and Champlain ostemoy. P. Lejeune, in the Relation of 1636, p. 13, informs us that the Montagnais called their Sorcerers manitousiouekbi: and according to P. Brébeuf. Rel. 1635. p.35. the Hurons designated theirs by the name arendiouane."—Laverdière, in loco.

342. The distances are here overstated by more than threefold, both in reference to the lake and the islands. This arose, perhaps, from the slow progress made in the birch canoes with a party of sixty undisciplined savages, a method of travelling to which Champlain was unaccustomed; and he may likewise have been misled by the exaggerations of the Indians, or he may have failed to comprehend their representation of distances.

343. Of the meaning of chaousarou, the name given by the Indians to this fish, we have no knowledge. It is now known as the bony-scaled pike, or gar pike, Lepidosteus osseus. It is referred to by several early writers after Champlain.

"I saw," says Sagard, "in the cabin of a Montagnais Indian a certain fish, which some call Chaousarou, as big as a large pike. It was only an ordinary sized one, for many larger ones are seen, eight, nine, and ten feet long, as is said. It had a snout about a foot and a half long, of about the same shape as that of the snipe, except that the extremity is blunt and not so pointed, and of a large size in proportion to the body. It has a double row of teeth, which are very sharp and dangerous;… and the form of the body is like that of a pike, but it is armed with very stout and hard scales, of silver gray color, and difficult to be pierced."—Sagard's History of Canada, Bk. iii. p. 765; Laverdière. Sagard's work was published in 1636. He had undoubtedly seen this singular fish; but his description is so nearly in the words of Champlain as to suggest that he had taken it from our author.

Creuxius, in his History of Canada, published at Paris in 1664, describes this fish nearly in the words of Champlain, with an engraving sufficiently accurate for identification, but greatly wanting in scientific exactness. He adds, "It is not described by ancient authors, probably because it is only found in the Lake of the Iroquois;" that is, in Lake Champlain. From which it may be inferred that at that time it had not been discovered in other waters. By the French, he says, it is called piscis armatus. This is in evident allusion to its bony scales, in which it is protected as in a coat of mail.

It is described by Dr. Kay in the Natural History of New York, Zoölogy, Part I. p 271. On Plate XLIII. Fig. 139, of the same work, the reader will observe that the head of the fish there represented strikingly resembles that of the chaousarou of Champlain as depicted on his map of 1612. The drawing by Champlain is very accurate, and clearly identifies the Gar Pike. This singular fish has been found in Lake Champlain, the river St. Lawrence, and in the northern lakes, likewise in the Mississippi River, where is to be found also a closely related species commonly called the alligator gar. In the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History are several specimens, one of them from St. John's River, Florida, four feet and nine inches in length, of which the head is seventeen and a half inches. If the body of those seen by Champlain was five feet, the head two and a half feet would be in about the usual proportion.

344. The Green Mountain range in Vermont, generally not more than twenty or twenty-five miles distant. Champlain was probably deceived as to the snow on their summits in July. What he saw was doubtless white limestone, which might naturally enough be taken for snow in the absence of any positive knowledge. The names of the summits visible from the lake are the following, with their respective heights. The Chin, 4,348 feet; The Nose, 4,044; Camel's Hump, 4,083; Jay's Peak, 4,018; Killington Peak, 3,924. This region was at an early period called Irocosia.