The mission of the Holy Cross at Tadousac was, however, the scene of the most assiduous labors, as often a thousand Indians of different tribes would be encamped there; and though nothing could be done to check the errant life of these Algonquins, ideas of Christian morality and faith were inculcated, and much reformation was effected. In 1660 Father Jerome Lalemant, superior of the missions, continued the labors of his predecessors on Lake St. John, and ascending the Mistassini, reached Nekouba, then a gathering-place for the Algonquin tribes of the interior. Here they hoped to reach several nations who had never seen a missionary, and especially the Ecureuil, or Squirrel tribe; but the Iroquois war-parties had penetrated farther than missionary zeal, and the Jesuits found the Algonquins of these remote cantons fleeing in all directions after sustaining a series of defeats from the fierce men-hunters from the Mohawk and Oswego. The great aim was to reach the Crees, but that nation was subsequently approached by way of the great lakes, when the route in that direction was opened by Menard.
Bailloquet and Nouvel wintered in successive years with bands of Montagnais, travelling in snow-shoes, and drawing their chapel requisites on a sled, as they followed the hunters, pitching their tents on encountering other parties, to enable them to fulfil their religious duties. Then, in the spring of 1664, while Druillettes visited the tribes on the upper waters of the Saguenay, Nouvel ascended the Manicouagan to the lake of that name in the country of the Papinachois, a part yet untrodden by the foot of the white man. Some of the tribe were already Christians, converted at the mission posts; but to most the missionary was an object of wonder, and his rude chapel a never-ceasing marvel to them and to a more northerly tribe, the Ouchestigouetch, who soon came to camp beside the mission cross.
Nouvel cultivated this tribe for several years, wintering among them, or pursuing them in their scattered cabins, till the spring of 1667, when all the Christians of these Montagnais bands gathered at Tadousac to meet Bishop Laval, who, visiting his diocese in his bark canoe, was coming to confer on those deemed sufficiently grounded in the faith the sacrament of confirmation. He reached Tadousac on the 24th of June, and was welcomed by four hundred Christian Indians, who escorted him to the temporary bark chapel, for the church had been totally destroyed by fire. The bishop confirmed one hundred and forty-nine.
Beaulieu, Albanel, and Druillettes labored there in the following years; but small-pox and other diseases, with want caused by the Iroquois driving them from their hunting-grounds, had reduced the Indians, so that, as Albanel states, in 1670 Tadousac was almost deserted,—not more than one hundred Indians assembled there, whereas he remembered the time when one could count a thousand or twelve hundred encamped at the post at once; and of this petty band some were Micmacs from Gaspé, and Algonquins from Sillery.
In 1671, while Father de Crépieul remained in charge of the missions near Tadousac, with which he was for years identified, Albanel, with the Sieur Denys de St. Simon, ascended the Saguenay, and wintering near Lake St. John pushed on by Lake and River Nemiskau, till they reached the shores of Hudson’s Bay, where the Jesuit planted his cross and began a mission. On his way to revisit it in 1674, he was crippled by an accident, and Albanel found him helpless in mid-winter in the woods near Lake St. John. Crépieul then visited the Papinachois in their country, as Father Louis Nicolas did the Oumamis at the Seven Islands. Boucher, a few years later, aided Crépieul, and from their chapels at Chicoutimi and Metabetchouan as centres, missionary excursions were made in all directions.
Dalmas, a later auxiliary of Crépieul, after wintering at Chicoutimi, was killed in the spring of 1694 on the shores of Hudson’s Bay.