The Ottawa River is the most important tributary of the St. Lawrence,
over seven hundred miles long, and draining a basin of one hundred
thousand square miles, the most productive pine-timber region
existing. It was the "Grand River" of the early French-Canadian
voyageurs, and the name of Ottawa, changed considerably from the
original form, comes from the Indian tribe and means "the traders." It
has a circuitous course; rising in Western Quebec province, it flows
northwest and then west for three hundred miles to Lake Temiscamingue,
on the border of Ontario province; then it turns and flows back
southeastward, making the boundary between the provinces for four
hundred miles, until it falls into the St. Lawrence, the vast volume
of its dark waters pressing the latter's blue current against the
farther shore. It is a romantic river, filled with rapids and
cascades, at times broadening into lakes, and again contracted into a
torrent barely fifty yards wide, where the waters are precipitated
over the rocks in wild splendor. For twenty-five miles above its mouth
it broadens into the "Lake of the Two Mountains," from one to six
miles wide. Above the city of Ottawa there are rapids terminating in
the famous Chaudière Falls, where the waters plunge down forty feet,
and part are said to disappear through an underground passage of
unknown outlet. It has an enormous lumber trade, and by a canal
system, avoiding the rapids, has been made navigable for two hundred
and fifty miles. The Rideau River enters from the south at Ottawa,
making the route by which the Rideau Canal goes over to Lake Ontario
at Kingston. The Gatineau River also flows in at Ottawa, being of
great volume, over four hundred miles long, and a prolific timber
producer. In the villages around Montreal all the saints in the
calendar are named, so that, starting on an exploration of Ottawa
River, the route goes by St. Martin, St. Jean, St. Rose, St. Therese,
St. Jerome, St. Lin, St. Eustache, St. Augustine, St. Scholastique,
St. Hermes, St. Phillippe, and many more. But when the great religious
city is left behind the saints cease to appear, and everything in the
Ottawa valley above is generally otherwise named. This valley is
usually a broad and level intervale, with only an occasional rocky
buttress pressing upon the river. At one of these passes, in 1660, a
handful of valiant men held the stockade at Carillon, the foot of Long
Sault rapids, sacrificing their lives to save the early colony from
the Indians, the place being known as the "French Canadian
Thermopylæ." The full force of the Iroquois warriors were in arms up
the Ottawa, over a thousand of them, threatening to drive the French
out of Montreal. Dollard des Ormeaux and sixteen companions took the
sacrament in the little Montreal church, made their wills, and bound
themselves by an oath neither to give nor take quarter. A few
Algonquins joined them, and going up the river they hastily built a
stockaded fort at this pass. Soon the Iroquois canoes came dancing
down the rapids, and discovering the fort, they surrounded and
attacked it, but were repulsed day after day, until every one of the
brave garrison had been killed, when the Iroquois had lost so many of
their own warriors that they tired of the fighting, and avoiding
Montreal, returned southward to their own country. Some fugitive
Indians told the heroic story, which George Murray has woven into his
ballad:
"Eight days of varied horror passed; what boots it now to tell
How the pale tenants of the fort heroically fell?
Hunger and thirst and sleeplessness, Death's ghastly aids, at
length,
Marred and defaced their comely forms, and quelled their giant
strength.
The end draws nigh--they yearn to die--one glorious rally more,
For the dear sake of Ville Marie and all will soon be o'er;
Sure of the martyr's golden Crown, they shrink not from the Cross,
Life yielded for the land they loved, they scorn to reckon loss."
Some distance above, at the Chateau Montebello, lived in the early
nineteenth century Louis Joseph Papineau, the "French-Canadian
O'Connell," the seigneur of the district, who was the local leader in
resistance to English aggressions, of whom the French are very proud,
and his portrait hangs in the Parliament House at Ottawa. He was
defeated, banished and then pardoned, and lived here to a ripe old age
to see many of the reforms and privileges for which he had contended
fully realized under subsequent administrations. The Riviere aux
Lièvres rushes into the Ottawa down a turbulent cascade, through which
logs dash until caught in the booms at the sawmills below, where are
vast lumber piles. This river is two hundred and eighty miles long,
and just above its mouth has a fall at Buckingham of seventy feet,
giving an enormous water-power. The whole region hereabout is devoted
to lumbering. The French _habitan_ from Lower Quebec comes up into
this wilderness of woods with scarcely any capital but his axe, in the
use of which he is expert. These Canadians do not like leaving their
homes, but are compelled by sheer necessity. When the old Quebec farm
has been subdivided among the children, under the French system, until
the long, ribbon-like strips of land become so narrow between the
fences that there is no opportunity for further sub-division, the
young men must seek a livelihood elsewhere. The old man gives them a
blessing, with a good axe and two or three dollars, and they start for
the lumber camps. They catch abundant fish, can live on almost
nothing, and need only buy their flour and salt, with some pork for a
luxury. These lumbermen often wear picturesque costumes like the old
voyageurs, and they like flaming red scarfs. They are as polite as the
most courtly French gentleman, and pass their evenings in dancing,
with music and singing the ancient songs of their forefathers,
scorning anything modern. Many of them are Metis, or half-breeds, the
descendants of French and Indians. These are more heavy featured and
not so sprightly as the pure French, but they are equally skillful
woodmen, and have inherited many good traits from both races, though
they rather regard with pity their full-blooded Indian half-brothers,
whose lot is scarcely as favorable. All these people are devout
Catholics, and going up into the woods in the late autumn and
remaining until after Easter, the priests always visit their camps to
attend to their spiritual wants. An impressive scene in these vast
forests in the dawn of a cold winter morning is to see the priest
standing with outstretched arms at the rude altar, the light of the
candles revealing the earnest faces of his flock as they reverentially
attend the mass. These woodmen are firm believers in the
supernatural, convinced that the spirits of the dead come back in
various shapes. If a single crow is seen they are sure a calamity has
occurred; if two crows fly before them it means a wedding. An owl
hooting indicates impending danger. They are always hearing strange
voices at night, or seeing ominous shapes in the twilight wood
shadows. The Metis are good hunters, and great is their joy when a
belated bear is found near the camp, or a deer or moose is tracked in
the snow. Their lumbering is done near the streams, so the logs may be
thrown in and floated down by the spring freshets. They make a vast
product of timber, sold throughout the lakes and St. Lawrence region,
much going across the Atlantic.