VI
THE HIGHWAY OF THE FUR TRADE
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.
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 French voyageurs and 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.
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 tramp
Roll 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 Canadian chanson. 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 of five pieces 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 a travaille loaded with his baggage and a large worsted mashguemcate belonging to Madame Langlois. Next appears Madame Cameron's mare, kicking, rearing, and snorting, hauling a travaille loaded 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 a travaille nicely 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 the travaille with 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."