IVTHE WAR-PATH OF THE IROQUOISThe story of the Richelieu River is a story of war and conflict. It opens just three hundred years ago, when Champlain set out from Quebec to join a war-party of Algonquins and Hurons, who had determined to seek the Iroquois in their own country, and had begged him to aid in the expedition. In consenting to do so, Champlain no doubt felt that he had good and sufficient reasons, but if he could have foreseen the consequences of his act he would surely have left the Algonquins and Iroquois to settle their difficulties in their own way, for from this first act of aggression dates the implacable hatred of the Iroquois for the French, and a century and more of ferocious raids into every corner of the struggling colony.Champlain, with his little party of French and a horde of naked savages, reached the mouth of the Richelieu, or the River of the Iroquois as it was then called, about the end of June 1609. The Indians quarrelled among themselves, and three-fourths of their number deserted and made off for home. The rest continued their course up the waters of the Richelieu. When they reached the rapids, above the Basin of Chambly, it was found impossible to take the shallop in which the French had travelled any farther. Sending most of his men back to Quebec, he himself, with two companions, determined to see the adventure through. After many days' hard paddling, the flotilla of canoes swept out on to the bosom of the noble lake which perpetuates the name of Champlain, and in the evening of the twenty-ninth of July they discovered the Iroquois in their canoes, near the point of land where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterwards built. The Iroquois made for the shore, and as night was falling it was mutually agreed to defer the battle until the following morning. The Iroquois threw up a barricade, while Champlain and his native allies spent the night in their canoes on the lake.In the morning Champlain and his two men put on light armour, and the whole party landed at some distance from the Iroquois. "I saw the enemy go out of their barricade," says Champlain, "nearly two hundred in number, stout and rugged in appearance. They came at a slow pace towards us, with a dignity and assurance which greatly amused me, having three chiefs at their head. Our men also advanced in the same order, telling me that those who had three large plumes were the chiefs, and that I should do what I could to kill them. I promised to do all in my power."As soon as we had landed, they began to run for some two hundred paces towards their enemies, who stood firmly, not having as yet noticed my companions, who went into the woods with some savages. Our men began to call me with loud cries; and in order to give me a passage-way, they opened in two parts, and put me at their head, where I marched some twenty paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about thirty paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me, as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at us, I rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the three chiefs. With the same shot two fell to the ground, and one of their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded my musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favourable for them, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have heard it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly killed, although they were equipped with armour woven from cotton thread, and with wood which was proof against their arrows. This caused great alarm among them. As I was loading again, one of my companions fired a shot from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a degree that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage, and took to flight, abandoning their camp and fort, and fleeing into the woods, whither I pursued them, killing still more of them. Our savages also killed several, and took ten or twelve prisoners. The remainder escaped with the wounded."After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their armour, which they had left behind that they might run better. After feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours after, with the prisoners."On the return journey, the Algonquins tied one of the prisoners to a stake, and tortured him with such refinement of cruelty as to arouse the disgust and resentment of Champlain. Finally, they allowed him to put the wretched Iroquois out of his misery with a musket-ball. Arrived at the rapids, the Algonquins and Hurons returned to their own country, with loud protestations of friendship for Champlain, while the latter continued his journey down to Quebec.If anything remained to heap the cup of Iroquois resentment to the brim, it was provided the following year, when Champlain again lent his assistance to the Algonquins and Hurons, and, encountering a war-party of Iroquois, a hundred strong, near the mouth of the Richelieu, killed or captured every one of them. The day was to come when the tables would be turned with a vengeance, when the war-cry of the Iroquois would be heard under the walls of Montreal and Quebec, and the death of each of the hundred warriors avenged a hundredfold.But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu is not limited to Indian wars, or the conflict between Indian and French. In later years it was to become the road of war between white and white, between New England and New France, and again between the revolted colonists of New England and the loyal colonists of Canada. On the very spot where Champlain and his Algonquins had defeated the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years later another conflict took place, curiously similar in some respects, though different enough in others. Again one side fought behind a barricade, while the other gallantly rushed to the assault, and again the defeat was overwhelming; but there the resemblance ends. Behind the impregnable breastwork at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with his three or four thousand French; without stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand British regulars and Colonial militia. Abercrombie's one and only idea was to carry the position by assault, and throughout the long day he hurled regiment after regiment up the deadly slope, only to see them mown down by hundreds and thousands before the breastwork. Champlain's victory was one of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm's was one of skill over stupidity.Seventeen years after the battle of Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton successfully defended England's northern colony consisted of French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned into channels of peaceful commerce.VTHE RIVER OF THE CATARACTThat dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tellThe seething horrors of its watery hell!Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweepThe tortured floods, drifting from side to sideIn furious vortices.KIRBY.Father Louis Hennepin, in hisNew Discovery of a Vast Country in America, gives the earliest known description of the river and falls of Niagara. "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there is a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its Parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but we may as well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this of which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this Descent that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down headlong above Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall is compounded of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The Waters which Fall from this vast height, do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the Wind blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above fifteen Leagues off. The River Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues together, to the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity: But having passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac."This same year, 1678, when Hennepin visited the great falls, La Salle, with his lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy with preparations for their western explorations, and in these the Niagara River was to play an important part. It was about the middle of November when La Motte, with Father Hennepin and sixteen men, sailed from Fort Frontenac (Kingston) in a little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and the cold of the autumn," says Hennepin, "were then very violent, insomuch that our crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel. This oblig'd us to keep our course on the north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves under the coast against the north-west wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in great danger, a couple of leagues off shore, where they were obliged to lie at anchor all night. The wind coming round to the north-east, however, they managed to continue their voyage, and arrived safely at an Iroquois village called Tajajagon, where Toronto stands to-day. They ran their little ship into the mouth of the Humber, where the Iroquois came to barter Indian corn, and gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the marvellous inventions of the white men. Contrary winds and trouble with the ice kept them there until the fifth of December, when they crossed the lake to the mouth of the Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine River Niagara, into which never any such Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there Te Deum, and other prayers, to return our thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous voyage." After examining the river as far as Chippewa Creek, La Motte, Hennepin and the men set to work to build a cabin, surrounded by palisades, two leagues above the mouth of the river. The ground was frozen, and hot water had to be used to thaw it out before the stakes could be driven in. The Iroquois, who according to Hennepin had been very friendly on their arrival at the mouth of the river, presenting them with fish, imputing their good fortune in the fisheries to the white men, and examining with interest and astonishment the "great wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious when they saw the strangers building a fortified house on what they considered peculiarly their own territory. La Motte and Hennepin went off to the great village of the Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to obtain their consent to the building of the fort, but without much success. Soon after their departure, La Salle and Tonty reached the Seneca village, on their way from Fort Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive, or more fortunate than his lieutenant, La Salle secured permission not only for the fortified post at the mouth of the river, but also for a much more important undertaking which he had planned, the building of a vessel at the upper end of the Niagara River, to be used in connection with his western explorations.During the winter the necessary material for theGriffin, as the new vessel was to be called, was carried over the long portage to the mouth of Cayuga Creek, above the falls, where a dock was prepared and the keel laid. La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin to desire him to drive the first bolt, but, as he says, his profession obliged him to decline the honour. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty to finish the work. The Iroquois, in spite of their agreement with La Salle, watched the building of theGriffinwith jealous dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of Frenchmen in a state of constant anxiety. Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the neighbouring tribes took the majority of them off, and the work was pushed forward with redoubled zeal, so that it might be completed before their return. The Indians that remained behind were too few to make an open attack, but they did their utmost to prevent the completion of the ship. One of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the blacksmith and tried to kill him, but was driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin naïvely remarks that this, "together with the reprimand he received from me," obliged him to be gone. A native woman warned Tonty that an attempt would be made to burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas tried to starve the French by refusing to sell them corn, and might have succeeded but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters, who kept the workmen supplied with game from the surrounding forest. Finally, theGriffinwas launched, amid the shouts of the French and the yelpings of the Indians, who forgot their displeasure in the novel spectacle. She was towed up the Niagara, and on the seventh of August, 1679, La Salle and his men sailed out over the placid waters of Lake Erie, the booming of his cannon announcing the approach of the first ship of the upper lakes. In theGriffinLa Salle sailed through Lakes Eric, St. Clair, and Huron, to Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake Michigan to the entrance to Green Bay, where some of his men, sent on ahead, had collected a quantity of valuable furs. These he determined to send back to Canada, to satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors, while he continued his voyage to the Mississippi. TheGriffinset sail for Niagara on the eighteenth of September. She never reached her destination, and her fate has remained one of the mysteries of Canadian history.VITHE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADEDear dark-brown waters, full of all the stainOf sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,Laden with sound from far-off northern glensWhere winds and craggy cataracts complain,Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,The pines that brood above the roaring foamOf La Montague or Des Erables; thine homeIs distant yet, a shelter far to gain.Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lakeAnd the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,The beryl waters that espouse and takeThine in their deep embrace, and bear thee onIn that great bridal journey to the sea.LAMPMAN.While Champlain was in Paris, in 1612, a young man, one Nicolas de Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year to visit the tribes of the Ottawa, reappeared, with a marvellous tale of what he had seen on his travels. He had found a great lake, he said, and out of it a river flowing north, which he had descended and reached the shores of the sea, where he had seen the wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days' travel by canoe, said Vignau, would bring one to the shores of his sea. Champlain was delighted, and prepared immediately to follow up this important discovery. He returned to Canada, and about the end of May 1613 set out from Montreal with Vignau and three companions. The rest of the story is better told in Parkman's words--and Parkman is here at his very best."All day they plied their paddles, and when the night came they made their campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east glowed with tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven. Beneath the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling in the face of day, hung like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched the dead top of the hemlock, and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the awakened wilderness."The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course. Soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the Chaudière barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage."While the Indians threw an offering into the foam as an offering to the Manitou of the cataract, Champlain and his men shouldered their canoes and climbed over the long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake of the Chaudière, now Lake Des Chênes. Past the Falls of the Chats and a long succession of rapids they made their way, until at last, discouraged by the difficulties of the river, they took to the woods, and made their way through them, tormented by mosquitoes, to the village of Tessouat, one of the principal chiefs of the Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to his country.Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes, and a great deal of speech-making followed. Champlain asked for men and canoes to conduct him to the country of the Nipissings, through whom he hoped to reach the North Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked dubious. They had no love for the Nipissings, and preferred to keep Champlain among themselves. Finally, at his urgent solicitation, they agreed, but as soon as he had left the lodge they changed their minds. Champlain returned and upbraided them as children who could not hold fast to their word. They replied that they feared that he would be lost in the wild north country, and among the treacherous Nipissings."But," replied Champlain, "this young man, Vignau, has been to their country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have said.""Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the Nipissings?""Yes," he replied, "I have been there,""You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He ought to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our enemies."Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but finally broke down and confessed his treachery. This "most impudent liar," as Champlain calls him, seems to have had no more substantial motive for his outrageous fabrication than vanity and the love of notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his presence, and in bitter disappointment retraced his steps to Montreal.From the days of Champlain to the close of the period of French rule, and for many years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as the main thoroughfare from Montreal to the great west. Up these waters generation after generation of fur-traders made their way, their canoes laden with goods, to be exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine, the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca, for skins brought in by all the surrounding tribes. Long before the first settler came to clear the forest and make a home for himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed to the shouts of Frenchvoyageursand Indian canoe-men, and the gay songs of Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling under a hot midsummer sun, and many a long and toilsome portage, were lightened by the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma boule," or the tender refrain of "A la claire fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs became in time a link between the old days of the fur-trade and the later period of the lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many years ago that one might sit on the banks of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings, and, as the mighty rafts of logs floated past, catch the familiar refrain, softened by distance:Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule.VIITHE RED RIVER OF THE NORTHBut, in the ancient woods the Indian old,Unequal to the chase,Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,No longer trodden by his fleeting race,And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,The savage shout, and mighty bison trampRoll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.MAIR.In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la Vérendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Vérendrye and his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of the Asiliboiles, as La Vérendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Vérendrye had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west. Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a village of Assiniboines on the way, La Vérendrye arrived on the banks of the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time with the Mandans, La Vérendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La Vérendrye's later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest, but lies outside the present subject.Returning to the Red River of the North, and spanning the interval in time to the close of the eighteenth century, we find another party of white men making their way up its muddy waters. This "brigade" of fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge of a famous Nor'-Wester known as Alexander Henry, whose voluminous journals were resurrected from the archives of the Library of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago. Henry gives us an admirably full picture of the Red River country and its human and other inhabitants, as they were in his day. One can see the long string of heavily laden canoes as they forced their way slowly up the current of the Red River, paddles dipping rhythmically to the light-hearted chorus of some old Canadianchanson. At night the camp is pitched on some comparatively high ground, fires are lighted, kettles hung, and the evening meal despatched. Then the men gather about the camp-fires, fill their pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story. They turn in early, however, for the day's paddling has been long and heavy, and they must be off again before daylight on the morrow. So the story runs from day to day.They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine, and Henry notes the ruins of La Vérendrye's old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg will appreciate his feeling references to the clinging character of the soil about the mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain had turned it into a kind of mortar that adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every step we raise several pounds of it."These were the days when the buffalo roamed in vast herds throughout the great western plains. One gets from Henry's narrative some idea of their almost inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red River, the country seemed alive with them. The "beach, once a soft black mud into which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn away." As the brigade nears the point where the international boundary crosses the Red River, an immense herd is seen, "commencing about half a mile from the camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving southward slowly, and the meadow seemed as if in motion."One further glimpse from Henry's Journal will serve to give some idea of life on the banks of the Red River at the beginning of the last century. Henry is describing the "bustle and noise which attended the transportation offivepieces of trading goods" from his own fort to one of the branch establishments."Antoine Payet, guide and second in command, leads the van, with a cart drawn by two horses and loaded with his private baggage, cassettes, bags, kettles, etc. Madame Payet follows the cart with a child a year old on her back, very merry. Charles Bottineau, with two horses and a cart loaded with one and a half packs, his own baggage, and two young children, with kettles and other trash hanging on to it. Madame Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her back, scolding and tossing it about. Joseph Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem and calumet in his hand; Madame Dubord follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe, with another cart and horses, loaded with two pieces of goods and with baggage belonging to Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot, and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste Brisebois follows with only his gun on his shoulder and a fresh-lighted pipe in his mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like Brisebois, with gun and pipe, puffing out clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the greatest smoker in the North-West, has nothing but pipe and pouch. These three fellows, having taken a farewell dram and lighted fresh pipes, go on brisk and merry, playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois, with a young mare, the property of Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking, an old worsted bag (madame's property), some squashes and potatoes, a small keg of fresh water, and two young whelps howling. Next goes Livernois' young horse, drawing atravailleloaded with his baggage and a large worstedmashguemcatebelonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling atravailleloaded with a bag of flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a small keg of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel Langlois, who is master of the band, now comes on leading a horse that draws atravaillenicely covered with a new-painted tent, under which his daughter and Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this covering or canopy has a pretty effect in the caravan, and appears at a great distance in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up the rear of the human beings, following thetravaillewith a slow step and melancholy air, attending to the wants of her daughter, who, notwithstanding her sickness, can find no other expressions of gratitude to her parents than by calling them dogs, fools, beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs, some for game, and others of no use whatever, except to snarl and destroy meat. The total forms a procession nearly a mile long, and appears like a large band of Assiniboines."To the uninitiated, it may be explained that acassetteis a box for carrying small articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian pipe; atravailleis a primitive species of conveyance, consisting of a couple of long poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog, as the case may be, and the other trailing on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway hold the poles together, and serve as a foundation for whatever load, human or otherwise, it is intended to carry.Mashguemcateis a species of bag, a general receptacle for odds and ends.VIIITHE MIGHTY MACKENZIEI love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged landOf fenceless field and snowy mountain height,Uprearing crests all starry-diademedAbove the silver clouds.LAUT.There was a man in the western fur-trade who felt that other things were better worth while than the bartering of blankets and beads for beaver-skins. His heart responded to the compelling cry of the unknown, and one bright June day, in the year 1789, he set forth in quest of other worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians, whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller might hope to navigate its waters and live.Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life, listened eagerly to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian character to make due allowances for exaggerations; but had all that he heard been true, the prospect of danger would only have whetted his appetite for exploration. From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, the way lay clear, and he launched his canoe, manned by four Canadianvoyageurs, while his Indian interpreters and hunters followed in a second. To Great Slave Lake they were on familiar waters, but beyond all was conjecture.To appreciate the magnitude of Mackenzie's undertaking, one must bear in mind that his object was to trace the mighty river that afterward bore his name to its mouth. He had no certain knowledge where it might empty--perhaps into the Arctic, possibly into the Pacific. In any case it involved a long journey, with all sorts of possible difficulties, human and natural; and as he must travel light, with only a limited supply of provisions, it was essential that he should go and return in one season--the very short season of these far northern latitudes. The natives whom he questioned ridiculed the idea of descending the Mackenzie to its outlet and returning the same season. They assured him that it would take him the entire season to go down; that winter would overtake him before he could begin the return journey; and that he would certainly perish of cold or starvation, even if he escaped the hostile tribes of the lower waters of the river.Mackenzie was confident that the journey could be made in the season, but to succeed they must travel at top speed. He had picked men with him, and it was fortunate that he had, for the pace was almost killing. Half-past three in the morning generally saw them in the canoes and off for a long day's hard paddling. One day they paddled steadily from half-past two in the morning until six in the evening, except short stops for meals, covering seventy-two miles in spite of a head wind.When they reached Great Slave Lake, they found it almost entirely covered with ice, though it was now the ninth of June. Coming down Slave River they had been tortured with mosquitoes and gnats, and the trees along the banks were in full leaf. This violent change was characteristic of the north. Five precious days were lost waiting for the ice to move, so that they might cross the lake. At last a westerly wind opened a passage, and after some perilous adventures they made the northern shore. Coasting slowly to the westward, about the end of the month they rounded the point of a long island, and Mackenzie found himself on the great river. The current increased as they travelled down stream, and it was possible to make good progress.On they went, day after day. July 1st they passed the mouth of what the Indians called the River of the Mountain, afterward known as the Liard, where Fort Simpson was built many years later. As they proceeded, it became clear to Mackenzie that the river down which he was paddling must empty into the Arctic--but would it be possible to reach the ocean and return to Fort Chipewyan that season? The men were beginning to get discouraged, and it required all Mackenzie's enthusiasm and strength of purpose to keep them to the strenuous task. The tribes they met as they went north--Slaves and Dog-ribs and Hare Indians--did not prove as ferocious as they had been represented, but they one and all described the dangers of the river below as stupendous. Thevoyageursgrumbled, but did not openly rebel. As for the Indians of Mackenzie's party, they were in open terror; expected at every turn of the river to come upon some of the fearful monsters of which the Slaves or Dog-ribs had warned them, and were only kept from deserting by Mackenzie's overmastering will. As they approached the mouth of the river, another terror was added--fear of meeting the Eskimos, for Indian and Eskimo were at deadly enmity. Altogether, the plucky explorer had troubles enough.On the second of July he came within sight of the Rocky Mountains, whose glistening summits the Indians calledManetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones, and the following day he camped at the foot of a remarkable hill, constantly referred to in the narratives of Sir John Franklin, Richardson, and other later explorers, as the "Rock by the River Side." There is an admirable drawing of the rock, by Kendall, in the narrative of Franklin's second voyage.A few days later Mackenzie passed the mouth of Bear River, draining that huge reservoir, Great Bear Lake, whose discovery remained for later explorers to accomplish, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles below he came to the Sans Sault Rapids--the fearful waterfall against which the natives had warned him. As a matter of fact it can be safely navigated at almost any season of the year.Another thirty miles brought the explorer to the afterward famous Ramparts of the Mackenzie. Here the banks suddenly contract to a width of five hundred yards, and for several miles the travellers passed through a gigantic tunnel, whose walls of limestone rose majestically on either side to a height of from one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and fifty feet.At last they reached the delta of the river, and it was well that they were so near their destination, for the Indians were thoroughly demoralised and thevoyageursdispirited, provisions were running perilously low, and the short northern summer was rapidly drawing to its close. On July 12th the party emerged from the river into what seemed to Mackenzie to be a lake, but which was really the mouth of the river. The following day confirmation of this came with the rising tide, which very nearly carried off the men's baggage while they slept. Paddling over to an island, which he named Whale Island, to commemorate an exciting chase after a school of these enormous animals the previous day, Mackenzie erected a post, on which he engraved the latitude of the spot, his own name, the number of persons he had with him in the expedition, and the time spent on the island.After a fruitless attempt to get in touch with the Eskimo, Mackenzie turned his face to the south, and, after a comparatively uneventful journey, arrived at Fort Chipewyan on September 12th, after a voyage of one hundred and two days. He had explored one of the greatest rivers of America, from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic, and he had added to the known world a territory greater than Europe. Nor was this all, for Mackenzie's journey to the Arctic was but the introduction to his even more difficult, and more momentous, expedition of three years later, over the mountains to the shores of the Pacific. This, however, does not lie within the compass of the present sketch.BOYLE, SON AND WATCHURSTPRINTERS,3-5 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBY CANADIAN STREAMS***
IV
THE WAR-PATH OF THE IROQUOIS
The story of the Richelieu River is a story of war and conflict. It opens just three hundred years ago, when Champlain set out from Quebec to join a war-party of Algonquins and Hurons, who had determined to seek the Iroquois in their own country, and had begged him to aid in the expedition. In consenting to do so, Champlain no doubt felt that he had good and sufficient reasons, but if he could have foreseen the consequences of his act he would surely have left the Algonquins and Iroquois to settle their difficulties in their own way, for from this first act of aggression dates the implacable hatred of the Iroquois for the French, and a century and more of ferocious raids into every corner of the struggling colony.
Champlain, with his little party of French and a horde of naked savages, reached the mouth of the Richelieu, or the River of the Iroquois as it was then called, about the end of June 1609. The Indians quarrelled among themselves, and three-fourths of their number deserted and made off for home. The rest continued their course up the waters of the Richelieu. When they reached the rapids, above the Basin of Chambly, it was found impossible to take the shallop in which the French had travelled any farther. Sending most of his men back to Quebec, he himself, with two companions, determined to see the adventure through. After many days' hard paddling, the flotilla of canoes swept out on to the bosom of the noble lake which perpetuates the name of Champlain, and in the evening of the twenty-ninth of July they discovered the Iroquois in their canoes, near the point of land where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterwards built. The Iroquois made for the shore, and as night was falling it was mutually agreed to defer the battle until the following morning. The Iroquois threw up a barricade, while Champlain and his native allies spent the night in their canoes on the lake.
In the morning Champlain and his two men put on light armour, and the whole party landed at some distance from the Iroquois. "I saw the enemy go out of their barricade," says Champlain, "nearly two hundred in number, stout and rugged in appearance. They came at a slow pace towards us, with a dignity and assurance which greatly amused me, having three chiefs at their head. Our men also advanced in the same order, telling me that those who had three large plumes were the chiefs, and that I should do what I could to kill them. I promised to do all in my power.
"As soon as we had landed, they began to run for some two hundred paces towards their enemies, who stood firmly, not having as yet noticed my companions, who went into the woods with some savages. Our men began to call me with loud cries; and in order to give me a passage-way, they opened in two parts, and put me at their head, where I marched some twenty paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about thirty paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me, as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at us, I rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the three chiefs. With the same shot two fell to the ground, and one of their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded my musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favourable for them, they began to raise such loud cries that one could not have heard it thunder. Meanwhile, the arrows flew on both sides. The Iroquois were greatly astonished that two men had been so quickly killed, although they were equipped with armour woven from cotton thread, and with wood which was proof against their arrows. This caused great alarm among them. As I was loading again, one of my companions fired a shot from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a degree that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage, and took to flight, abandoning their camp and fort, and fleeing into the woods, whither I pursued them, killing still more of them. Our savages also killed several, and took ten or twelve prisoners. The remainder escaped with the wounded.
"After gaining the victory, our men amused themselves by taking a great quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies, also their armour, which they had left behind that they might run better. After feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned three hours after, with the prisoners."
On the return journey, the Algonquins tied one of the prisoners to a stake, and tortured him with such refinement of cruelty as to arouse the disgust and resentment of Champlain. Finally, they allowed him to put the wretched Iroquois out of his misery with a musket-ball. Arrived at the rapids, the Algonquins and Hurons returned to their own country, with loud protestations of friendship for Champlain, while the latter continued his journey down to Quebec.
If anything remained to heap the cup of Iroquois resentment to the brim, it was provided the following year, when Champlain again lent his assistance to the Algonquins and Hurons, and, encountering a war-party of Iroquois, a hundred strong, near the mouth of the Richelieu, killed or captured every one of them. The day was to come when the tables would be turned with a vengeance, when the war-cry of the Iroquois would be heard under the walls of Montreal and Quebec, and the death of each of the hundred warriors avenged a hundredfold.
But the sanguinary story of the Richelieu is not limited to Indian wars, or the conflict between Indian and French. In later years it was to become the road of war between white and white, between New England and New France, and again between the revolted colonists of New England and the loyal colonists of Canada. On the very spot where Champlain and his Algonquins had defeated the Iroquois, one hundred and fifty years later another conflict took place, curiously similar in some respects, though different enough in others. Again one side fought behind a barricade, while the other gallantly rushed to the assault, and again the defeat was overwhelming; but there the resemblance ends. Behind the impregnable breastwork at Ticonderoga stood Montcalm with his three or four thousand French; without stood Abercrombie, with fifteen thousand British regulars and Colonial militia. Abercrombie's one and only idea was to carry the position by assault, and throughout the long day he hurled regiment after regiment up the deadly slope, only to see them mown down by hundreds and thousands before the breastwork. Champlain's victory was one of civilisation over savagery; Montcalm's was one of skill over stupidity.
Seventeen years after the battle of Ticonderoga, the Richelieu once more became the road of war. Down its historic waters came Montgomery, with his three thousand Americans, to capture Montreal and to be driven back from the walls of Quebec. Among all the singular circumstances that led up to and accompanied this disastrous attempt to relieve Canadians of the British yoke, none was more remarkable, or more significant, than the fact that the bulk of the plucky little army with which Guy Carleton successfully defended England's northern colony consisted of French-Canadians--the same down-trodden French-Canadians on whose behalf Congress had sent an army to drive the British into the sea. As for the Richelieu, having served for the better part of two centuries as the pathway of savage and civilised war, its energies were at length turned into channels of peaceful commerce.
V
THE RIVER OF THE CATARACT
That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tellThe seething horrors of its watery hell!Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweepThe tortured floods, drifting from side to sideIn furious vortices.KIRBY.
That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tellThe seething horrors of its watery hell!Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweepThe tortured floods, drifting from side to sideIn furious vortices.KIRBY.
That dread abyss! What mortal tongue may tell
The seething horrors of its watery hell!
Where, pent in craggy walls that gird the deep,
Imprisoned tempests howl, and madly sweep
The tortured floods, drifting from side to side
In furious vortices.
KIRBY.
KIRBY.
Father Louis Hennepin, in hisNew Discovery of a Vast Country in America, gives the earliest known description of the river and falls of Niagara. "Betwixt the Lake Ontario and Erie," he says, "there is a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its Parallel. 'Tis true, Italy and Suedeland boast of some such Things; but we may as well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compar'd to this of which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this Descent that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while endeavouring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down headlong above Six hundred foot. This wonderful Downfall is compounded of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The Waters which Fall from this vast height, do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous Noise, more terrible than that of Thunder; for when the Wind blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above fifteen Leagues off. The River Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues together, to the great Rock, with an inexpressible Rapidity: But having passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac."
This same year, 1678, when Hennepin visited the great falls, La Salle, with his lieutenants Tonty and La Motte, were busy with preparations for their western explorations, and in these the Niagara River was to play an important part. It was about the middle of November when La Motte, with Father Hennepin and sixteen men, sailed from Fort Frontenac (Kingston) in a little vessel of ten tons. "The winds and the cold of the autumn," says Hennepin, "were then very violent, insomuch that our crew was afraid to go into so little a vessel. This oblig'd us to keep our course on the north side of the lake, to shelter ourselves under the coast against the north-west wind." On the twenty-sixth they were in great danger, a couple of leagues off shore, where they were obliged to lie at anchor all night. The wind coming round to the north-east, however, they managed to continue their voyage, and arrived safely at an Iroquois village called Tajajagon, where Toronto stands to-day. They ran their little ship into the mouth of the Humber, where the Iroquois came to barter Indian corn, and gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the marvellous inventions of the white men. Contrary winds and trouble with the ice kept them there until the fifth of December, when they crossed the lake to the mouth of the Niagara. "On the 6th, being St. Nicholas's Day," says Hennepin, "we got into the fine River Niagara, into which never any such Ship as ours enter'd before. We sung there Te Deum, and other prayers, to return our thanks to Almighty God for our prosperous voyage." After examining the river as far as Chippewa Creek, La Motte, Hennepin and the men set to work to build a cabin, surrounded by palisades, two leagues above the mouth of the river. The ground was frozen, and hot water had to be used to thaw it out before the stakes could be driven in. The Iroquois, who according to Hennepin had been very friendly on their arrival at the mouth of the river, presenting them with fish, imputing their good fortune in the fisheries to the white men, and examining with interest and astonishment the "great wooden canoe," grew sullen and suspicious when they saw the strangers building a fortified house on what they considered peculiarly their own territory. La Motte and Hennepin went off to the great village of the Senecas, beyond the Genesee, to obtain their consent to the building of the fort, but without much success. Soon after their departure, La Salle and Tonty reached the Seneca village, on their way from Fort Frontenac to the Niagara. More persuasive, or more fortunate than his lieutenant, La Salle secured permission not only for the fortified post at the mouth of the river, but also for a much more important undertaking which he had planned, the building of a vessel at the upper end of the Niagara River, to be used in connection with his western explorations.
During the winter the necessary material for theGriffin, as the new vessel was to be called, was carried over the long portage to the mouth of Cayuga Creek, above the falls, where a dock was prepared and the keel laid. La Salle sent the master-carpenter to Hennepin to desire him to drive the first bolt, but, as he says, his profession obliged him to decline the honour. La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, leaving Tonty to finish the work. The Iroquois, in spite of their agreement with La Salle, watched the building of theGriffinwith jealous dissatisfaction, and kept the little band of Frenchmen in a state of constant anxiety. Fortunately, one of their expeditions against the neighbouring tribes took the majority of them off, and the work was pushed forward with redoubled zeal, so that it might be completed before their return. The Indians that remained behind were too few to make an open attack, but they did their utmost to prevent the completion of the ship. One of them, feigning drunkenness, attacked the blacksmith and tried to kill him, but was driven off with a red-hot bar. Hennepin naïvely remarks that this, "together with the reprimand he received from me," obliged him to be gone. A native woman warned Tonty that an attempt would be made to burn the vessel. Failing in this, the Senecas tried to starve the French by refusing to sell them corn, and might have succeeded but for the efforts of two Mohegan hunters, who kept the workmen supplied with game from the surrounding forest. Finally, theGriffinwas launched, amid the shouts of the French and the yelpings of the Indians, who forgot their displeasure in the novel spectacle. She was towed up the Niagara, and on the seventh of August, 1679, La Salle and his men sailed out over the placid waters of Lake Erie, the booming of his cannon announcing the approach of the first ship of the upper lakes. In theGriffinLa Salle sailed through Lakes Eric, St. Clair, and Huron, to Michilimackinac, and thence crossed Lake Michigan to the entrance to Green Bay, where some of his men, sent on ahead, had collected a quantity of valuable furs. These he determined to send back to Canada, to satisfy the clamorous demands of his creditors, while he continued his voyage to the Mississippi. TheGriffinset sail for Niagara on the eighteenth of September. She never reached her destination, and her fate has remained one of the mysteries of Canadian history.
VI
THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stainOf sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,Laden with sound from far-off northern glensWhere winds and craggy cataracts complain,Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,The pines that brood above the roaring foamOf La Montague or Des Erables; thine homeIs distant yet, a shelter far to gain.Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lakeAnd the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,The beryl waters that espouse and takeThine in their deep embrace, and bear thee onIn that great bridal journey to the sea.LAMPMAN.
Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stainOf sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,Laden with sound from far-off northern glensWhere winds and craggy cataracts complain,Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,The pines that brood above the roaring foamOf La Montague or Des Erables; thine homeIs distant yet, a shelter far to gain.Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lakeAnd the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,The beryl waters that espouse and takeThine in their deep embrace, and bear thee onIn that great bridal journey to the sea.LAMPMAN.
Dear dark-brown waters, full of all the stain
Of sombre spruce-woods and the forest fens,
Laden with sound from far-off northern glens
Where winds and craggy cataracts complain,
Voices of streams and mountain pines astrain,
The pines that brood above the roaring foam
Of La Montague or Des Erables; thine home
Is distant yet, a shelter far to gain.
Aye, still to eastward, past the shadowy lake
And the long slopes of Rigaud toward the sun.
The mightier stream, thy comrade, waits for thee,
The beryl waters that espouse and take
Thine in their deep embrace, and bear thee on
In that great bridal journey to the sea.
LAMPMAN.
LAMPMAN.
While Champlain was in Paris, in 1612, a young man, one Nicolas de Vignau, whom he had sent the previous year to visit the tribes of the Ottawa, reappeared, with a marvellous tale of what he had seen on his travels. He had found a great lake, he said, and out of it a river flowing north, which he had descended and reached the shores of the sea, where he had seen the wreck of an English ship. Seventeen days' travel by canoe, said Vignau, would bring one to the shores of his sea. Champlain was delighted, and prepared immediately to follow up this important discovery. He returned to Canada, and about the end of May 1613 set out from Montreal with Vignau and three companions. The rest of the story is better told in Parkman's words--and Parkman is here at his very best.
"All day they plied their paddles, and when the night came they made their campfire in the forest. Day dawned. The east glowed with tranquil fire, that pierced, with eyes of flame, the fir-trees whose jagged tops stood drawn in black against the burning heaven. Beneath the glossy river slept in shadow, or spread far and wide in sheets of burnished bronze; and the white moon, paling in the face of day, hung like a disk of silver in the western sky. Now a fervid light touched the dead top of the hemlock, and, creeping downward, bathed the mossy beard of the patriarchal cedar, unstirred in the breathless air. Now, a fiercer spark beamed from the east; and now, half risen on the sight, a dome of crimson fire, the sun blazed with floods of radiance across the awakened wilderness.
"The canoes were launched again, and the voyagers held their course. Soon the still surface was flecked with spots of foam; islets of froth floated by, tokens of some great convulsion. Then, on their left, the falling curtain of the Rideau shone like silver betwixt its bordering woods, and in front, white as a snow-drift, the cataracts of the Chaudière barred their way. They saw the unbridled river careering down its sheeted rocks, foaming in unfathomed chasms, wearying the solitude with the hoarse outcry of its agony and rage."
While the Indians threw an offering into the foam as an offering to the Manitou of the cataract, Champlain and his men shouldered their canoes and climbed over the long portage to the quiet waters of the Lake of the Chaudière, now Lake Des Chênes. Past the Falls of the Chats and a long succession of rapids they made their way, until at last, discouraged by the difficulties of the river, they took to the woods, and made their way through them, tormented by mosquitoes, to the village of Tessouat, one of the principal chiefs of the Algonquins, who welcomed Champlain to his country.
Feasting, the smoking of ceremonial pipes, and a great deal of speech-making followed. Champlain asked for men and canoes to conduct him to the country of the Nipissings, through whom he hoped to reach the North Sea. Tessouat and his elders looked dubious. They had no love for the Nipissings, and preferred to keep Champlain among themselves. Finally, at his urgent solicitation, they agreed, but as soon as he had left the lodge they changed their minds. Champlain returned and upbraided them as children who could not hold fast to their word. They replied that they feared that he would be lost in the wild north country, and among the treacherous Nipissings.
"But," replied Champlain, "this young man, Vignau, has been to their country, and did not find the road or the people so bad as you have said."
"Nicholas," demanded Tessouat, "did you say that you had been to the Nipissings?"
"Yes," he replied, "I have been there,"
"You are a liar," returned the unceremonious host; "you know very well that you slept here among my children every night, and got up again every morning; and if you ever went to the Nipissings, it must have been when you were asleep. How can you be so impudent as to lie to your chief, and so wicked as to risk his life among so many dangers? He ought to kill you with tortures worse than those with which we kill our enemies."
Vignau held out stoutly for a time, but finally broke down and confessed his treachery. This "most impudent liar," as Champlain calls him, seems to have had no more substantial motive for his outrageous fabrication than vanity and the love of notoriety. Champlain spurned him from his presence, and in bitter disappointment retraced his steps to Montreal.
From the days of Champlain to the close of the period of French rule, and for many years thereafter, the Ottawa was known as the main thoroughfare from Montreal to the great west. Up these waters generation after generation of fur-traders made their way, their canoes laden with goods, to be exchanged at remote posts on the Assiniboine, the Saskatchewan, or the Athabasca, for skins brought in by all the surrounding tribes. Long before the first settler came to clear the forest and make a home for himself in the wilderness, these banks echoed to the shouts of Frenchvoyageursand Indian canoe-men, and the gay songs of Old Canada. Many a weary hour of paddling under a hot midsummer sun, and many a long and toilsome portage, were lightened by the rollicking chorus of "En roulant ma boule," or the tender refrain of "A la claire fontaine." These inimitable folk-songs became in time a link between the old days of the fur-trade and the later period of the lumber traffic. It is indeed not so many years ago that one might sit on the banks of the Ottawa, in the long summer evenings, and, as the mighty rafts of logs floated past, catch the familiar refrain, softened by distance:
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule.
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule roulant,En roulant ma boule.
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule.
En roulant ma boule.
VII
THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH
But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,Unequal to the chase,Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,No longer trodden by his fleeting race,And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,The savage shout, and mighty bison trampRoll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.MAIR.
But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,Unequal to the chase,Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,No longer trodden by his fleeting race,And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,The savage shout, and mighty bison trampRoll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.MAIR.
But, in the ancient woods the Indian old,
Unequal to the chase,
Unequal to the chase,
Sighs as he thinks of all the paths untold,
No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
No longer trodden by his fleeting race,
And, westward, on far-stretching prairies damp,
The savage shout, and mighty bison tramp
Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.MAIR.
Roll thunder with the lifting mists of morn.
MAIR.
MAIR.
In September 1738 a party of French explorers left Fort Maurepas, near the mouth of the Winnipeg River, and, skirting the lower end of Lake Winnipeg in their canoes, reached the delta of the Red River of the North. Threading its labyrinthine channels, they finally emerged on the main stream. The commander of this little band of pathfinders--first of white men to see the waters of the Red River--was Pierre Gaultier de la Vérendrye, one of the most dauntless and unselfish characters in the whole history of exploration. Paddling up the river, La Vérendrye and his men finally came to the mouth of the Assiniboine, or the Forks of the Asiliboiles, as La Vérendrye calls it, where he met a party of Crees with two war-chiefs. The chiefs tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey toward the west, using the usual native arguments as to the dangers of the way, and the treachery of other tribes; but La Vérendrye had heard such arguments before, and was not to be turned from his purpose by dangers, real or assumed. He had set his heart on the discovery of the Western Sea, and as a means to that end was now on his way to visit a strange tribe of Indians whose country lay toward the south-west--the Mandans of the Missouri. Leaving one of his officers behind to build a fort at the mouth of the Assiniboine, about where the city of Winnipeg stands to-day, he continued his journey to the west. Somewhere near the present town of Portage la Prairie, he and his men built another small post, afterwards known as Fort La Reine. From this outpost he set out in October, with a selected party of twenty men, for an overland journey to the Mandan villages on the Missouri. Visiting a village of Assiniboines on the way, La Vérendrye arrived on the banks of the Missouri on the third of December. Knowing the value of an imposing appearance, he made his approach to the Mandan village as spectacular as possible. His men marched in military array, with the French flag borne in front, and as the Mandans crowded out to meet him, the explorer brought his little company to a stand, and had them fire a salute of three volleys, with all the available muskets, to the unbounded astonishment and no small terror of the Mandans, to whom both the white men and their weapons were entirely unknown. After spending some time with the Mandans, La Vérendrye returned to Fort La Reine, leaving two of his men behind to learn the language, and pick up all the information obtainable as to the unknown country that lay beyond, and the prospects of reaching the Western Sea by way of the Missouri. The story of La Vérendrye's later explorations, and his efforts to realise his life-long ambition to reach the shores of the Western Sea, is full of interest, but lies outside the present subject.
Returning to the Red River of the North, and spanning the interval in time to the close of the eighteenth century, we find another party of white men making their way up its muddy waters. This "brigade" of fur-traders, as it was called, was in charge of a famous Nor'-Wester known as Alexander Henry, whose voluminous journals were resurrected from the archives of the Library of Parliament at Ottawa some years ago. Henry gives us an admirably full picture of the Red River country and its human and other inhabitants, as they were in his day. One can see the long string of heavily laden canoes as they forced their way slowly up the current of the Red River, paddles dipping rhythmically to the light-hearted chorus of some old Canadianchanson. At night the camp is pitched on some comparatively high ground, fires are lighted, kettles hung, and the evening meal despatched. Then the men gather about the camp-fires, fill their pipes, and an hour is spent in song and story. They turn in early, however, for the day's paddling has been long and heavy, and they must be off again before daylight on the morrow. So the story runs from day to day.
They reach the mouth of the Assiniboine, and Henry notes the ruins of La Vérendrye's old Fort Rouge. Old residents of Winnipeg will appreciate his feeling references to the clinging character of the soil about the mouth of the Assiniboine: "The last rain had turned it into a kind of mortar that adheres to the foot like tar, so that at every step we raise several pounds of it."
These were the days when the buffalo roamed in vast herds throughout the great western plains. One gets from Henry's narrative some idea of their almost inconceivable numbers. As he ascended the Red River, the country seemed alive with them. The "beach, once a soft black mud into which a man would sink knee-deep, is now made hard as pavement by the numerous herds coming to drink. The willows are entirely trampled and torn to pieces; even the bark of the smaller trees is rubbed off in places. The grass on the first bank of the river is entirely worn away." As the brigade nears the point where the international boundary crosses the Red River, an immense herd is seen, "commencing about half a mile from the camp, whence the plain was covered on the west side of the river as far as the eye could reach. They were moving southward slowly, and the meadow seemed as if in motion."
One further glimpse from Henry's Journal will serve to give some idea of life on the banks of the Red River at the beginning of the last century. Henry is describing the "bustle and noise which attended the transportation offivepieces of trading goods" from his own fort to one of the branch establishments.
"Antoine Payet, guide and second in command, leads the van, with a cart drawn by two horses and loaded with his private baggage, cassettes, bags, kettles, etc. Madame Payet follows the cart with a child a year old on her back, very merry. Charles Bottineau, with two horses and a cart loaded with one and a half packs, his own baggage, and two young children, with kettles and other trash hanging on to it. Madame Bottineau, with a squalling infant on her back, scolding and tossing it about. Joseph Dubord goes on foot, with his long pipe-stem and calumet in his hand; Madame Dubord follows on foot, carrying his tobacco-pouch with a broad bead-tail. Antoine La Pointe, with another cart and horses, loaded with two pieces of goods and with baggage belonging to Brisebois, Jasmin and Pouliot, and a kettle hung on each side. Auguste Brisebois follows with only his gun on his shoulder and a fresh-lighted pipe in his mouth. Michel Jasmin goes next, like Brisebois, with gun and pipe, puffing out clouds of smoke. Nicolas Pouliot, the greatest smoker in the North-West, has nothing but pipe and pouch. These three fellows, having taken a farewell dram and lighted fresh pipes, go on brisk and merry, playing numerous pranks. Domin Livernois, with a young mare, the property of Mr. Langlois, loaded with weeds for smoking, an old worsted bag (madame's property), some squashes and potatoes, a small keg of fresh water, and two young whelps howling. Next goes Livernois' young horse, drawing atravailleloaded with his baggage and a large worstedmashguemcatebelonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling atravailleloaded with a bag of flour, cabbages, turnips, onions, a small keg of water, and a large kettle of broth. Michel Langlois, who is master of the band, now comes on leading a horse that draws atravaillenicely covered with a new-painted tent, under which his daughter and Mrs. Cameron lie at full length, very sick; this covering or canopy has a pretty effect in the caravan, and appears at a great distance in the plains. Madame Langlois brings up the rear of the human beings, following thetravaillewith a slow step and melancholy air, attending to the wants of her daughter, who, notwithstanding her sickness, can find no other expressions of gratitude to her parents than by calling them dogs, fools, beasts, etc. The rear guard consists of a long train of twenty dogs--some for sleighs, some for game, and others of no use whatever, except to snarl and destroy meat. The total forms a procession nearly a mile long, and appears like a large band of Assiniboines."
To the uninitiated, it may be explained that acassetteis a box for carrying small articles; calumet is, of course, the Indian pipe; atravailleis a primitive species of conveyance, consisting of a couple of long poles, one end fastened to a horse or dog, as the case may be, and the other trailing on the ground. Cross-bars lashed midway hold the poles together, and serve as a foundation for whatever load, human or otherwise, it is intended to carry.Mashguemcateis a species of bag, a general receptacle for odds and ends.
VIII
THE MIGHTY MACKENZIE
I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged landOf fenceless field and snowy mountain height,Uprearing crests all starry-diademedAbove the silver clouds.LAUT.
I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged landOf fenceless field and snowy mountain height,Uprearing crests all starry-diademedAbove the silver clouds.LAUT.
I love thee, O thou great, wild, rugged land
Of fenceless field and snowy mountain height,
Uprearing crests all starry-diademed
Above the silver clouds.
LAUT.
LAUT.
There was a man in the western fur-trade who felt that other things were better worth while than the bartering of blankets and beads for beaver-skins. His heart responded to the compelling cry of the unknown, and one bright June day, in the year 1789, he set forth in quest of other worlds. The man was Alexander Mackenzie, and the worlds he sought to conquer were those of the far north. There was said to be a mighty river whose waters no white man had ever yet seen, whose source and outlet could only be guessed at, from the vague reports of Indians, whose banks were said to be infested with bloodthirsty tribes, and whose course was broken by so many and dangerous cataracts that no traveller might hope to navigate its waters and live.
Mackenzie, chafing at the dreary monotony of the fur-trader's life, listened eagerly to all such tales. He knew enough of Indian character to make due allowances for exaggerations; but had all that he heard been true, the prospect of danger would only have whetted his appetite for exploration. From his post, Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, the way lay clear, and he launched his canoe, manned by four Canadianvoyageurs, while his Indian interpreters and hunters followed in a second. To Great Slave Lake they were on familiar waters, but beyond all was conjecture.
To appreciate the magnitude of Mackenzie's undertaking, one must bear in mind that his object was to trace the mighty river that afterward bore his name to its mouth. He had no certain knowledge where it might empty--perhaps into the Arctic, possibly into the Pacific. In any case it involved a long journey, with all sorts of possible difficulties, human and natural; and as he must travel light, with only a limited supply of provisions, it was essential that he should go and return in one season--the very short season of these far northern latitudes. The natives whom he questioned ridiculed the idea of descending the Mackenzie to its outlet and returning the same season. They assured him that it would take him the entire season to go down; that winter would overtake him before he could begin the return journey; and that he would certainly perish of cold or starvation, even if he escaped the hostile tribes of the lower waters of the river.
Mackenzie was confident that the journey could be made in the season, but to succeed they must travel at top speed. He had picked men with him, and it was fortunate that he had, for the pace was almost killing. Half-past three in the morning generally saw them in the canoes and off for a long day's hard paddling. One day they paddled steadily from half-past two in the morning until six in the evening, except short stops for meals, covering seventy-two miles in spite of a head wind.
When they reached Great Slave Lake, they found it almost entirely covered with ice, though it was now the ninth of June. Coming down Slave River they had been tortured with mosquitoes and gnats, and the trees along the banks were in full leaf. This violent change was characteristic of the north. Five precious days were lost waiting for the ice to move, so that they might cross the lake. At last a westerly wind opened a passage, and after some perilous adventures they made the northern shore. Coasting slowly to the westward, about the end of the month they rounded the point of a long island, and Mackenzie found himself on the great river. The current increased as they travelled down stream, and it was possible to make good progress.
On they went, day after day. July 1st they passed the mouth of what the Indians called the River of the Mountain, afterward known as the Liard, where Fort Simpson was built many years later. As they proceeded, it became clear to Mackenzie that the river down which he was paddling must empty into the Arctic--but would it be possible to reach the ocean and return to Fort Chipewyan that season? The men were beginning to get discouraged, and it required all Mackenzie's enthusiasm and strength of purpose to keep them to the strenuous task. The tribes they met as they went north--Slaves and Dog-ribs and Hare Indians--did not prove as ferocious as they had been represented, but they one and all described the dangers of the river below as stupendous. Thevoyageursgrumbled, but did not openly rebel. As for the Indians of Mackenzie's party, they were in open terror; expected at every turn of the river to come upon some of the fearful monsters of which the Slaves or Dog-ribs had warned them, and were only kept from deserting by Mackenzie's overmastering will. As they approached the mouth of the river, another terror was added--fear of meeting the Eskimos, for Indian and Eskimo were at deadly enmity. Altogether, the plucky explorer had troubles enough.
On the second of July he came within sight of the Rocky Mountains, whose glistening summits the Indians calledManetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones, and the following day he camped at the foot of a remarkable hill, constantly referred to in the narratives of Sir John Franklin, Richardson, and other later explorers, as the "Rock by the River Side." There is an admirable drawing of the rock, by Kendall, in the narrative of Franklin's second voyage.
A few days later Mackenzie passed the mouth of Bear River, draining that huge reservoir, Great Bear Lake, whose discovery remained for later explorers to accomplish, and about one hundred and twenty-five miles below he came to the Sans Sault Rapids--the fearful waterfall against which the natives had warned him. As a matter of fact it can be safely navigated at almost any season of the year.
Another thirty miles brought the explorer to the afterward famous Ramparts of the Mackenzie. Here the banks suddenly contract to a width of five hundred yards, and for several miles the travellers passed through a gigantic tunnel, whose walls of limestone rose majestically on either side to a height of from one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and fifty feet.
At last they reached the delta of the river, and it was well that they were so near their destination, for the Indians were thoroughly demoralised and thevoyageursdispirited, provisions were running perilously low, and the short northern summer was rapidly drawing to its close. On July 12th the party emerged from the river into what seemed to Mackenzie to be a lake, but which was really the mouth of the river. The following day confirmation of this came with the rising tide, which very nearly carried off the men's baggage while they slept. Paddling over to an island, which he named Whale Island, to commemorate an exciting chase after a school of these enormous animals the previous day, Mackenzie erected a post, on which he engraved the latitude of the spot, his own name, the number of persons he had with him in the expedition, and the time spent on the island.
After a fruitless attempt to get in touch with the Eskimo, Mackenzie turned his face to the south, and, after a comparatively uneventful journey, arrived at Fort Chipewyan on September 12th, after a voyage of one hundred and two days. He had explored one of the greatest rivers of America, from Great Slave Lake to the Arctic, and he had added to the known world a territory greater than Europe. Nor was this all, for Mackenzie's journey to the Arctic was but the introduction to his even more difficult, and more momentous, expedition of three years later, over the mountains to the shores of the Pacific. This, however, does not lie within the compass of the present sketch.
BOYLE, SON AND WATCHURSTPRINTERS,3-5 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBY CANADIAN STREAMS***