JACQUES CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA
All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands
to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas washing the western
coast of North America; Verazzano, a Florentine, in the service of
France, had explored the coast of the United States, and a good deal
was known when Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, steps upon the scene and
wins for his country a large tract of land about the river St. Lawrence.
His object was to find a way across America to Cathay. With two little
ships of sixty tons and sixty-one "chosen men," Cartier left St. Malo
on 20th April 1534. With prosperous weather he tells us he made the
coast of Newfoundland in three weeks, which would mean sailing over
one hundred miles a day. He was a little too early in the season, for
the easterly winds which had helped him on his way had blocked the
east coast of the island with Arctic ice. Having named the point at
which he first touched land Cape Bona Vista, he cruised about till,
the ice having melted, he could sail down the straits of Belle Isle
between the mainland of Labrador and Newfoundland, already discovered
by Breton fishermen. Then he explored the now familiar Gulf of St.
Lawrence--the first European to report on it. All through June the
little French ships sailed about the Gulf, darting across from island
to island and cape to cape. Prince Edward Island appealed to him
strongly. "It is very pleasant to behold," he tells us. "We found
sweet-smelling trees as cedars, yews, pines, ash, willow. Where the
ground was bare of trees it seemed very fertile and was full of wild
corn, red and white gooseberries, strawberries, and blackberries, as
if it had been cultivated on purpose." It now grew hotter, and Cartier
must have been glad of a little heat. He sighted Nova Scotia and sailed
by the coast of New Brunswick, without naming or surveying them. He
describes accurately the bay still called Chaleur Bay: "We named this
the Warm Bay, for the country is warmer even than Spain and exceedingly
pleasant." They sailed up as far as they could, filled with hope that
this might be the long-sought passage to the Pacific Ocean. Hope Cape
they named the southern point, but they were disappointed by finding
only a deep bay, and to-day, by a strange coincidence, the point
opposite the northern shore is known as Cape Despair--the Cap d'Espoir
of the early French mariners. Sailing on to the north amid strong
currents and a heavy sea, Cartier at last put into a shelter (Gaspe
Bay). Here, "on the 24th of July, we made a great cross thirty feet
high, on which we hung up a shield with three fleurs-de-lis, and
inscribed the cross with this motto: 'Vive le roi de France.' When
this was finished, in presence of all the natives, we all knelt down
before the cross, holding up our hands to heaven and praising God."
[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER. From an old pen drawing at the
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.]
Storms and strong tides now decided Cartier to return to France. He
knew nothing of the Cabot Strait between Newfoundland and the land
afterwards called Nova Scotia, so he guided his little ships right
through the Straits of Belle Isle, and after being "much tossed by
a heavy tempest from the east, which we weathered by the blessing of
God," he arrived safely home on 5th September, after his six months'
adventure. He was soon commissioned to continue the navigation of
these new lands, and in May 1535 he safely led three ships slightly
larger than the last across the stormy Atlantic. Contrary winds, heavy
gales, and thick fogs turned the voyage of three weeks into five--the
ships losing one another not to meet again till the coast of Labrador
was reached. Coasting along the southern coast, Cartier now entered
a "very fine and large bay, full of islands, and with channels of
entrance and exit in all winds." Cartier named it "Baye Saint Laurens,"
because he entered it on 10th August--the feast of St. Lawrence.
Do any of the English men and women who steam up the Gulf of St. Lawrence
in the great ocean steamers to-day, on their way to Canada, ever give
a thought to the little pioneer French ships that four hundred years
ago thought they were sailing toward Cathay?
"Savages," as Cartier calls the Indians, told him that he was near
the mouth of the great river Hochelaga (now the St. Lawrence), which
became narrower "as we approach towards Canada, where the water is
fresh."
"On the first day of September," says Cartier, "we set sail from the
said harbour for Canada." Canada was just a native word for a town
or village. It seems strange to read of the "lord of Canada" coming
down the river with twelve canoes and many people to greet the first
white men he had ever seen; strange, too, to find Cartier arriving
at "the place called Hochelaga--twenty-five leagues above Canada,"
where the river becomes very narrow, with a rapid current and very
dangerous on account of rocks. For another week the French explorers
sailed on up the unknown river. The country was pleasant, well-wooded,
with "vines as full of grapes as they would hang." On 2nd October,
Cartier arrived at the native town of Hochelaga. He was welcomed by
hundreds of natives,--men, women, and children,--who gave the
travellers as "friendly a welcome as if we had been of their own nation
come home after a long and perilous absence." The women carried their
children to him to touch them, for they evidently thought that some
supernatural being had come up from the sea. All night they danced
to the light of fires lit upon the shore.
[Illustration: CANADA AND THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING QUEBEC
(KEBEC). From Lescarbot's _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, 1609.]
The next morning Cartier, "having dressed himself splendidly," went
ashore with some of his men. All were well armed, though the natives
seemed peacefully disposed. They marched along a well-beaten track
to the Indian city, which stood in the midst of cultivated fields of
Indian corn and maize. Again the inhabitants met them with signs of
joy and gladness, and the King was carried shoulder high, seated on
a large deer-skin with a red wreath round his head made of the skins
of hedgehogs instead of a crown.
A curious scene then took place. The King placed his crown on the head
of the French explorer, before whom he humbled himself as before a
god. Thus evidently did the people regard him, for they brought to
him their blind, their lame, and their diseased folk that he might
cure them. Touched with pity at the groundless confidence of these
poor people, Cartier signed them with the sign of the cross. "He then
opened a service book and read the passion of Christ in an audible
voice, during which all the natives kept a profound silence, looking
up to heaven and imitating all our gestures. He then caused our trumpets
and other musical instruments to be sounded, which made the natives
very merry."
Cartier and his men then went to the top of the neighbouring mountain.
The extensive view from the top created a deep impression on the French
explorer; he grew enthusiastic over the beauty of the level valley
below and called the place Mont Royal--a name communicated to the busy
city of Montreal that lies below.
Winter was now coming on, and Cartier decided against attempting the
homeward voyage so late in the year; but to winter in the country he
chose a spot between Montreal and Quebec, little thinking what the
long winter months would bring forth. The little handful of Frenchmen
had no idea of the severity of the Canadian climate; they little dreamt
of the interminable months of ice and snow when no navigation was
possible. Before Christmas had come round the men were down with
scurvy; by the middle of February, "out of one hundred and ten persons
composing the companies of our three ships, there were not ten in
perfect health. Eight were dead already. The sickness increased to
such a pitch that there were not above three sound men in the whole
company; we were obliged to bury such as died under the snow, as the
ground was frozen quite hard, and we were all reduced to extreme
weakness, and we lost all hope of ever returning to France." From
November to March four feet of snow lay upon the decks of their little
ships. And yet, shut up as they were in the heart of a strange and
unknown land, with their ships icebound and nought but savages around,
there is no sound of murmur or complaint. "It must be allowed that
the winter that year was uncommonly long" is all we hear.
[Illustration: NEW FRANCE, SHOWING NEWFOUNDLAND, LABRADOR, AND THE
ST. LAWRENCE. From Jocomo di Gastaldi's Map, about 1550. The "Isola
de Demoni" is Labrador, and "Terra Nuova" and the islands south of
it make up Newfoundland. The snaky-like line represents a sandbank,
which was then thought, and agreed, to be the limit of fishing. Montreal
(Port Real) will be noticed on the coast.]
May found them free once more and making for home with the great news
that, though they had not found the way to Cathay, they had discovered
and taken a great new country for France.
A new map of the world in 1536 marks Canada and Labrador, and gives
the river St. Lawrence just beyond Montreal. A map of 1550 goes further,
and calls the sea that washes the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador
the "Sea of France," while to the south it is avowedly the "Sea of
Spain."
[Illustration: THE "DAUPHIN" MAP OF THE WORLD. MADE BY PIERRE
DESCELIERS, 1546, TO THE ORDER OF FRANCIS I., FOR THE DAUPHIN (HENRI
II. OF FRANCE). This map gives a remarkably clear and interesting view
of geographical knowledge in the first half of the sixteenth century.
(It is to be noted that all objects on one side of the Equinoctial
are reversed.)]