Canada then suited the French, and the French suited Canada; but the effect of the geography of Canada on an incoming race, with the instincts and the characteristics of the French, was to stimulate their natural inclination to attempt too much and to go too fast and too far. The incomers moved quickly along the lines of communication, and went into the heart of the continent; but permanent settlement lagged behind, and was confined to the edges of the inland waters. For, while nature had given to Canada, in her rivers and lakes, the best of roads, away from those rivers and lakes the land was difficult to penetrate. Thus Canada was colonized only by the water side, and what settlement there was, was characterized by length without breadth; while, beyond the point where continuous settlement ended, the very easiness of movement carried forward enterprising French officers, priests, and traders, until there was a skeleton outline of French dominion, which was never filled in, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico.
| Settlement held close to the water side. Two distinct kinds of colonists in Canada. |
Geography, too, had this effect upon the population. The rivers were so entirely all in all, that they made the settled portion of the French Canadians very settled, and the fluid portion very fluid. Those who wished to stay in one place stayed by the river bank, which was the roadside, because it was the roadside, and because behind and away from the river there was not open ground but dense forest. Those, on the other hand, who were inclined to roam, were carried by the waters wheresoever they wished, with the backwoods at hand, should hiding-places be required. Thus Canada bred two distinct species of colonists, the habitans of the central St. Lawrence, and the voyageurs or coureurs de bois. As in their old home, so still more in their new, the French race comprised contradictory elements.
| Effect of the Canadian climate on colonization. It made against continuity |
Climate counts for much in the formation of a people, and in determining its history. The climate of Eastern Canada inclines to extremes. It favours quickness but not continuity of action. The summer is short, but very hot and bright; the winter is long and severe, but again not unfavourable to movement over the frozen surface of water and ground. Eastern Canada is not by nature a land open all the year round to steady work, but one in which settlers have a limited time wherein to till the ground, followed by a long, close season; while wanderers can in summer and winter alike indulge their vagrant instincts. The tendency therefore of the Canadian climate, as regards its influence on an incoming race, with a restless and impatient element in its character, was to stimulate the restlessness, and to discourage colonization in the sense of attachment to the soil.
| and against the policy of the French Government. |
In winter, the St. Lawrence is closed to shipping. Consequently New France was for several months in each year cut off from all communication with the mother country. Here again the effect of climate was to break continuity of colonization; and, moreover, the forces of nature were employed against the policy of the French Government, for the effect of long breaks in communication must have been to develop a separate life in New France, evidence of which is to be found in the jealousy existing, in Vaudreuil's and Montcalm's time, between natives of France and natives of Canada; whereas the unaltering aim of French Kings and ministers was simply to reproduce France in America, and to keep the colony under constant and rigid control from home. The effects of the summer, therefore, on Canada were counteracted by winter isolation; and one more element of contradiction was introduced into French history in North America.
| Canada had no minerals. This was one cause of the small population. |
The natural products of a country are an important factor in making its people. Canada, as compared with most other fields of colonization, with Spanish America for instance, or the East Indies, was a poor land. It had practically no mineral wealth, though traces of iron and copper were found in the region of Lake Superior. In the earlier part of the eighteenth century Charlevoix wrote: 'The first source of the ill fortune of this country, which is honoured with the name of New France, was the report which was at first spread through the kingdom that it had no mines; and they did not enough consider that the greatest advantage that can be drawn from a colony is the increase of trade. And to accomplish this, it requires people, and these peoplings must be made by degrees, so that it will not appear in such a kingdom as France.'1 The great weakness of Canada was the paucity of the white population. Had mines been discovered, the colony would no doubt have been much stronger, for a far greater number of colonists would have come out from France; and, while the character of the people would have been, in a sense, at least as restless as it actually was, the restlessness would have been localized in the mining areas, which would have become large centres of population.