Canada, Sir John George Bourinot [best time to read books .TXT] 📗

sure to find Indians in large numbers. Contemporary writers state that the presence of so many unruly elements at this distant outpost frequently threw the whole settlement into a sad state of confusion and excitement, which the priests were at times entirely unable to restrain. Indians, soldiers, and traders became at last so demoralised, that one of the priests wrote, in his despair, that there seemed no course open except "deserting the missions and giving them up to the brandy-sellers as a domain of drunkenness and debauchery."

But it would be a mistake to judge all the _coureurs de bois_ by the behaviour of a majority, who were made up necessarily from the ruder elements of the Canadian population. Even the most reckless of their class had their work to do in the opening up of this continent. Despising danger in every form, they wandered over rivers and lakes and through virgin forests, and "blazed" a track, as it were, for the future pioneer. They were the first to lift the {176} veil of mystery that hung, until they came, on many a solitary river and forest. The posts they raised by the side of the western lakes and rivers, were so many videttes of that army of colonisers who have built up great commonwealths in that vast country, where the bushranger was the only European two centuries ago. The most famous amongst their leaders was the quick-witted Nicholas Perrot--the explorer of the interior of the continent. Another was Daniel Greysolon Duluth, who became a Canadian Robin Hood, and had his band of bushrangers like any forest chieftain. For years he wandered through the forests of the West, and founded various posts at important points, where the fur trade could be prosecuted to advantage. Posterity has been more generous to him than it has been to others equally famous as pioneers, for it has given his name to a city at the head of Lake Superior. Like many a forest which they first saw in its primeval vastness, these pioneers have disappeared into the shadowy domain of an almost forgotten past, and their memory is only recalled as we pass by some storm-beat cape, or land-locked bay, or silent river, to which may still cling the names they gave as they swept along in the days of the old regime.


XIII.


THE PERIOD OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY: FRANCE IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

(1672-1687.)

Sault St. Marie was the scene of a memorable episode in the history of New France during the summer of 1671. Simon Francois Daumont, Sieur St. Lusson, received a commission from the government of Quebec to proceed to Lake Superior to search for copper mines, and also to take formal possession of the basin of the lakes and its tributary rivers. With him were two men, who became more famous than himself--Nicholas Perrot and Louis Jolliet, the noted explorers and rangers of the West. On an elevation overlooking the rapids, around which modern enterprise has built two ship-canals, St. Lusson erected a cross and post of cedar, with the arms of France, in the presence of priests in their black robes, Indians bedecked with tawdry finery, and bushrangers in motley dress. In the name of the "most high, mighty, and redoubted monarch, Louis XIV. of that name, most Christian King of France and of {178} Navarre," he declared France the owner of Sault Ste. Marie, Lakes Huron and Superior, and Isle of Mackinac, and "all of adjacent countries, rivers, and lakes, and contiguous streams." As far as boastful words and, priestly blessings could go, France was mistress of an empire in the great West.

Three names stand out in bold letters on the records of western discovery: Jolliet, the enterprising trader, Marquette, the faithful missionary, and La Salle, the bold explorer. The story of their adventures takes up many pages in the histories of this fascinating epoch. Talon may be fairly considered to have laid the foundations of western exploration, and it was left for Louis de Baude, Comte de Frontenac, who succeeded Courcelles as governor in 1672, to carry out the plans of the able intendant when he left the St. Lawrence.

Jolliet, a Canadian by birth, was wisely chosen by Talon--and Frontenac approved of the choice--to explore the West and find the "great water," of which vague stories were constantly brought back by traders and bushrangers. Jolliet was one of the best specimens of a trader and pioneer that Canadian history gives us. His roving inclinations were qualified by a cool, collected brain, which carried him safely through many a perilous adventure. He had for his companion Father Marquette, who was then stationed at the mission of St. Ignace, and had gathered from the Indians at his western missions--especially at La Pointe on Lake Superior--valuable information respecting the "great water" then {179} called the "Missipi." Both had many sympathies in common. Jolliet had been educated by the Jesuits in Canada, but unlike La Salle, he was in full accord with their objects. Marquette possessed those qualities of self-sacrifice and religious devotion which entitle him to rank with Lalemant, Jogues, and Brebeuf. While Jolliet was inspired by purely ambitious and trading instincts, the missionary had no other hope or desire than to bring a great region and its savage communities under the benign influence of the divine being whose heavenly face seemed ever present, encouraging him to fresh efforts in her service. It was in the spring of 1673 that these two men started with five companions in two canoes on their journey through that wilderness, which stretched beyond Green Bay--an English corruption of Grande Baie. Like Nicolet, they ascended the Fox River to the country of the Mascoutins, Foxes, and Kickapoos, where they obtained guides to lead them across the portage to the Wisconsin. The adventurers had now reached the low "divide" between the valleys of the Lakes and the Mississippi. The Fox River and its affluents flowed tranquilly to the great reservoirs of the St. Lawrence, while the Wisconsin, on which they now launched their canoes, carried them to a mighty river, which ended they knew not where. A month after leaving St. Ignace they found themselves "with a great and inexpressible joy"--to quote Marquette's words--on the rapid current of a river which they recognised as the Missipi. As they proceeded they saw the low-lying natural meadows and prairies where herds {180} of buffalo were grazing, marshes with a luxuriant growth of wild rice, the ruined castles which nature had in the course of many centuries formed out of the rocks of the western shores, and the hideous manitous which Indian ingenuity had pictured on the time-worn cliffs. They had pleasant interviews with the Indians that were hunting the roebuck and buffalo in this land of rich grasses. Their canoes struggled through the muddy current, which the Missouri gave as its tribute to the Missipi, passed the low marshy shores of the Ohio, and at last came near the mouth of the Arkansas, where they landed at an Indian village which the natives called Akamsea. Here they gathered sufficient information to enable them to form the conclusion that the great river before their eyes found its way, not to the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, but to the Gulf of Mexico. Then they decided not to pursue their expeditions further at that time, but to return home and relate the story of their discovery. When they came to the mouth of the Illinois River, they took that route in preference to the one by which they had come, followed the Des Plaines River,--where a hill still bears Jolliet's name--crossed the Chicago portage, and at last found themselves at the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. It was then the end of September, and Jolliet did not reach Canada until the following summer. When nearly at his journey's end, Fate dealt him a cruel blow, his canoe was capsized after running the Lachine Rapids just above Montreal, and he lost all the original notes of his journey. Frontenac, however, received from {181} him a full account of his explorations, and sent it to France.

Two centuries later than this memorable voyage of Jolliet, a French Canadian poet-laureate described it in verse fully worthy of the subject, as the following passage and equally spirited translation[1] go to show:

LA DECOUVERTE DU THE DISCOVERY OF THE
MISSISSIPPI. MISSISSIPPI.

Jolliet . . . Jolliet . . . O, Jolliet, what splendid faery
quel spectacle feerique dream
Dut frapper ton regard, quand Met thy regard, when on that
ta nef historique mighty stream,
Bondit sur les flots d'or du Bursting upon its lonely
grand fleuve inconnu unknown flow,
Quel eclair triomphant, a cet Thy keel historic cleft its
instant de fievre, golden tide:--
Dut resplendir sur ton front Blossomed thy lip with what
nu? . . . stern smile of pride?
What conquering light shone
on thy lofty brow?

Le voyez-vous la-bas, debout Behold him there, a prophet,
comme un prophete, lifted high,
L'oeil tout illumine d'audace Heart-satisfied, with bold,
satisfaite, illumined eye,
La main tendue au loin vers His hand outstretched toward
l'Occident bronze. the sunset furled,
Prendre possession de ce Taking possession of this domain
domaine