INDEPTH: CHAMPLAIN ANNIVERSARY
Tadoussac: 1603
Alison Hancock, CBC News Online | March 5, 2004
After the failures of Cartier, Roberval, La Roche and Chauvin, France was anxious to establish a firm base in the St. Lawrence to strengthen its dominance of the fur trade.
Champlain's drawing of Tadoussac
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In 1603, Champlain sailed to Tadoussac, the trading centre at the mouth of the Saguenay, with the St. Malo fur trader Pont-Gravé. The expedition was sponsored by Vice-Admiral de Chastes, whom Champlain had met at Court. Its goal was to investigate possible sites for settlement. When Pont-Gravé sailed from Honfleur on March 15th in two vessels, la Bonne-Renommée and the Françoise, Champlain went along at de Chastes' invitation as an observer.
Aboard were two aboriginal boys Pont-Gravé had brought back to France with him from Tadoussac in 1601. It was a common practice to take natives of the New World back to Europe. The idea was that the aboriginal people would learn European languages and act as interpreters on future voyages.
Passing Anticosti Island and the Gaspé peninsula the party reached Tadoussac Harbour on May 26th. Nearby, around a hundred Algonquins were holding a tabagie, or feast, to celebrate a victory over the Iroquois. The young translators told the aboriginal people that the French wanted to settle in these lands, and end their local wars. Champlain describes another feast at Tadoussac a couple of weeks later, at which he expounded Christian doctrine to the Sagamore (chief), named Anadabijou.
On June 11th, Champlain sailed up the Saguenay River. The Montagnais he met described their portages and trade routes to him, and told him of a great salt water sea. Champlain correctly concluded this was a gulf of the Atlantic ocean rather than the much sought Asian Sea. It was of course Hudson's Bay, named by the English explorer Henry Hudson in 1610.
Hochelaga
Courtesy: National Library of Canada
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A week later, Champlain and Pont-Gravé set off up the St Lawrence, reaching l'Ile d'Orleans and Quebec on June 22nd. Champlain was the first to use the name Quebec, which means a "narrowing of the river."
Champlain was retracing the route Cartier had followed in 1535, but reported seeing only small groups of natives along the shores of the St. Lawrence. By the time Champlain visited the site of present-day Montréal, the large Iroquois settlement that had greeted Cartier was no longer there. And there was no trace of Stadacona, the site of Quebec City. All Champlain found was a burnt-out chimney at nearby Cap-Rouge where Cartier had wintered in 1541.
No one really knows why the Iroquois settlements of Hochelaga and Stadacona disappeared between the 1540s and the early 1600s. It may have been due to wars, or possibly migration. The natives Champlain met at Tadoussac belonged to the Algonquin League, consisting of the Algonquins of the Ottawa River, the Montagnais of the Saguenay, and the Etchemins of Acadia. They were nomadic hunters who supplied the fur trade.
The Lachine Rapids proved a barrier for Champlain, just as they had for Cartier in 1535. But, thanks to his interpreters, language was less of a barrier for Champlain than it had been for Cartier. The natives Champlain met
both at the Lachine Rapids, and on the way back to Tadoussac, described for him the Great Lake System, the Niagara Falls, and the Ottawa River.
After returning to Tadoussac, Champlain and Pont-Gravé left for the Gaspé peninsula and the famous Percé Rock. From the native people he met, Champlain heard reports of Acadia and its rich mineral deposits.
The place sounded attractive, and Champlain's visit influenced the choice of Acadia over the inhospitable north shore of the St Lawrence for future French settlement.
On his return to France, accompanied by a three-year old native boy, Champlain wrote an account of his trip, Des Sauvages.
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The Works of Champlain and The History of New France by Marc Lescarbot are available at: The Champlain Society
READING:
Champlain by Joe C. W. Armstrong (MacMillan of Canada, 1987)
The Beginnings of New France 1524-1663 by Marcel Trudel (McLelland and Stewart, 1973)
Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France by Samuel Eliot Morison (Little Brown and Company, 1972)
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