Champlain's Dream

by David Hackett Fischer

  82. Paul Gafferel, Histoire du Brésil français au seizième siècle (Paris, 1878), with original documents; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 1, 180–92; 2:2, 3, 31, 33.

  9. NORUMBEGA

  1. Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle France (Montreal, 1963) 2:62.

  2. Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 1:280.

  3. CWB 1:280; for her probable length see Jean Liebel, Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons (n.p., 1999), 127; also Père Fournier, Hydrographie contenant la théorie et la pratique de toutes les parties de la navigation (Paris, 1643), 11. The French text of 1628 that defined a patache as a “petit navire de guerre préposé à la surveillance des côtes” is quoted in Alain Rey et al. eds., Le Grand Robert (Paris, 2001) 5:333; Samuel Eliot Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972) defines a patache erroneously by her rig, as a square-rigged ketch. Contemporary drawings suggest that her hull design was very different from that of the larger navires and smaller shallops, which typically had bluff bows, a broad beam, a lee board, and a large degree of “tumble home” that was much favored in the early seventeenth century. For a discussion of these ship-types, see appendix M.

  4. CWB 1:428.

  5. Some drawings of these small craft show a two-masted rig, with a small foremast and a larger mainmast; others have a mainmast and mizzen. The foremast was rigged with a sail that Champlain called bourcet or lugsail, an irregular quadrilateral bent on a diagonal yard. When coming about, the leading edge of the yard would be “dipped” and brought to the lee side of the mast. Cf. CWB 1:377; Howard I. Chapelle, American Small Craft: Their Design, Development and Construction (New York, 1951), 284–85; maps and drawings in Allan Forbes and Paul Cadman, France and England (Boston: 1925–29) 3:11–12.

  6. CWB 1:280; 390.

  7. Ibid. 2:437, 276; for Champlain on spares, see his Traitté de la Marine in CWB 6:253–348.

  8. On other voyages Champlain sailed with a small barque du port of five to eight tons, in company or on a towline. See CWB 1:276–78; see appendix M on Champlain’s ships and small craft.

  9. CWB 1:280. For helpful guides that confirm the accuracy of Champlain’s account see Hank and Jan Taft with Curtis Rindlaub, A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast 3rd edition revised and expanded (1988, Peaks Island, Maine, 1996); also James L. Bildner, A Visual Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast (New York, 2006), which usefully combines chart segments with aerial photographs. Another useful tool are satellite images of the Maine coast, easily accessible on Google mapping programs, with maps and satellite photographs linked.

  10. CWB 1:281.

  11. Carl O. Sauer, Seventeenth Century America (Berkeley, 1980), 78; Kenny Taylor, Puffins (Stillwater, Minn., 1999), 26.

  12. Morison thought that Champlain’s Isles Rangées were Cross, Libby’s, Head Harbor, Steel Harbor, and Great Wass islands. I take them to be the small islets south of Roque Island, which are even more regular. Compare Morison, Champlain, 46, with Google Satellite maps, s.v. “Roque Island.”

  13. Many writers assert that Champlain spent the night somewhere near Schoodic. Biggar believed that he slept on Heron Island on the west side of Schoodic. Morison wrote that Champlain “put in at one of the little harbors (Birch, Wonsqueak, or Prospect)” and spent the night on the east side of Schoodic. This is not what Champlain wrote, and his narrative is our only guide. Champlain’s French text tells us very plainly that he left the Sainte-Croix River on September 5, sailed southwest 25 leagues (probably about 75 nautical miles or 86 statute miles), and “this same day, ce mesme jour,” reached the island he named Mount Desert. Champlain’s account indicates that he did not stay the night on Schoodic; Morison, Biggar, and Slafter (Champlain’s Voyages [Boston, 1878–82]) are mistaken. Cf. CWB 1:282; Morison, Champlain, 46; Biggar, in CWB 1:282n.

  14. CWB 2:282–83.

  15. In 1608, when he explored the valley of the Saguenay River, he wrote: “Il y a quelques isles dedans icelle riuiere qui sont fort desertes, n’estas que rochers, couuertes de petits sapins & bruieres; there are several islets in this river which are very barren, nothing but rocks covered with small spruce and briars.” John Squair translates désertes here as barren; CWB 2:17.

  Another example from the same passage: “Toute la terre que i’y ay veuë ne sont que montaignes & premontoires de rochers, la pluspart couuerts de sapins et boulleaux, terre fort mal plaisante, tant d’un costé que d’autre; enfin ce sont de vrais déserts, inhabités d’animaux & oyseaux; the country on both sides of the river is nothing but mountains and rocky promontories, for the most part covered with spruce and birch, a very unpleasant place, on both sides of the river, in short they are a real wilderness, uninhabited by animals and birds” CWB 2:17. Note that the French habité means “inhabited” in English; inhabité means “uninhabited.” Here is another linguistic “false friend” where the same cognate has opposite meanings in English and French—at once the despair and delight of a translator.

  16. CWB 1:282.

  17. For the run of twenty-five leagues, see CWB 1:281; at sea Champlain tended to use Spanish leagues of three nautical miles; see appendix N.

  18. “Peregrine Falcons in Acadia,” U.S. National Park Service, 1999; Candace Savage, Peregrin Falcons (San Francisco, 1994); J. T. Harris, The Peregrine Falcon in Greenland (Columbia, Mo., 1981); A. C. Bent, Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (1937, New York, 1961).

  19. CWB 1:282.

  20. Champlain does not identify the cove in his narrative. Some islanders think that he might have run into Salisbury Cove, or Cromwell Harbor, or possibly Compass Harbor, but Otter Cove would have been closer and more convenient for careening his patache and more consistent with the text. Morison agrees in Champlain, 46.

  21. Today’s Frenchman Bay should not be confused with Champlain’s Baie Françoise (or Française), which was his name for the Bay of Fundy.

  22. Morison’s account is mistaken, as are other works that follow him. Cf. Morison, Champlain, 47; and CWB 1:283–84.

  23. Ibid. 1:286.

  24. Ibid. 1:290.

  25. Ibid. 1:291.

  26. Ibid. 1:290.

  27. Lucien Campeau, “Bonaventure, enfant montagnais,” Monumenta Novae Franciae 2:662, 120, 248, 480, 602; CWB 1:289–96, 352–61.

  28. CWB 1:294; Pierre Biard, in “Relation de la Nouvelle France,” Relations des Jesuites IV; Colin Calloway, ed., Dawnland Encounters: Indians and Europeans in Northern New England (Hanover, N.H., 1991).

  29. CWB 1:294–95. Champlain was not the first Christian to sail up the Penobscot River. The Portuguese explorer Estevan Gómez went there in 1525 and left an inscription on a map, “no gold.” Gómez explored the coast of North America, found nothing of value, and to turn a profit captured a shipload of Indians in hope of selling them as slaves in Europe. He acted against the explicit orders of Charles V, and Spanish authorities forced him to free the few Indians who survived his treatment. Gómez also sailed with Magellan’s squadron in another ship, organized a mutiny, murdered his captain, and deserted the expedition. Fortunately for Champlain, the Indians of the Penobscot Valley did not see much of Gómez, and appear to have forgotten about him by 1604. Cf. Morison, European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages (New York, 1971), 326–31.

  30. CWB 1:295. On the location of the meeting, most historians defer to the judgment of Fannie Eckstrom, a gifted scholar who knew the ground, and a rigorous critic with very high standards of accuracy. She wrote: “The statements of many historians and near historians are so full of errors and so contradictory that it is useless to cite them as evidence, [and] needless to demolish them as errors.” Fannie Hardy Eckstrom, Old John Neptune and other Maine Indian Shamans (1945, rpt. Portland, 1980), 76.

  31. CWB 1:294–96; The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer 25th edition (Yarmouth, 2002), maps 23, 77. On the west side of the Penobscot River was the large grove of oaks that attracted Cha
mplain. On the east bank of the river was the handsome stand of white pines in what is now the town of Brewer. Local historians believe that the meeting place took place at the junction of the two rivers, near the intersection of Oak Street and Washington Street in Bangor.

  32. CWB 1:296.

  33. Ibid. 1:297; cf. Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, plate 23.

  34. US Route 1 runs very close to the water’s edge through this area from Moose Point to Belfast Bridge.

  35. CWB 1:284n; Samuel E. Morison, Northern Voyages (New York, 1971), 67, 464–70, 488–89; Sigmund Diamond, “Norumbega: New England Xanadu,” American Neptune 11 (1951), 95–107.

  36. CWB 1:297–99.

  37. Ibid. 1:299.

  38. Ibid. 1:300.

  39. Ibid. 1:298. On the ethnic identity of these people, a helpful work of high importance is Bruce J. Bourque, “Ethnicity on the Maritime Peninsula, 1600–1759,” Ethnohistory 36 (1989), 257–84; also Dean R. Snow, “The Ethnohistoric Baseline of the Eastern Abenake,” Ethnohistory 23 (1976), 291–306. Still very helpful are the works of Fannie Eckstrom, especially “The Indians of Maine,” in Louis C. Hatch ed., Maine: A History (New York, 1919), 43–64; Jeanne Patten Whitten, Fannie Hardy Eckstrom: A Descriptive Bibliography of her Writings, Published and Unpublished (Orono, 1976), 38–52.

  40. CWB 1:311–12, 362; Sauer, Seventeenth Century America, 80.

  41. James L. Bildner, A Visual Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast (Camden, Me., 2006), 224–25.

  42. CWB 1:312; Morison, Champlain, 56.

  43. Morison asserts that he sailed from Crow Island and, “without stopping he passed outside Mount Desert and Isle au Haut and anchored in a harbor near Bedabedec.” This cannot be correct, as Champlain tells us that they were thirteen days and nights getting from Sainte-Croix to Bedabedec. In between, the only places that Champlain mentioned were Crow Island, Mount Desert and “one of the islands at the mouth of the Kennebec River.” Query: where did they spend thirteen nights along this coast from June 18 to July 1, 1605? I think it probable that they stayed at least several days at each of these places including Mount Desert Island, perhaps on the island itself. Cf. CWB 1:312; Morison, Champlain, 56.

  44. Champlain always called the Penobscot the Nurembega. CWB 1:312–23; for sailing times, see Joe C. W. Armstrong, Champlain (Toronto, 1987), 59.

  45. CWB 1:314–15.

  46. Edmund Slafter and the Abbé C.-H. Laverdière worked out Champlain’s route. It was mapped by Henry Biggar and confirmed by Morison, who sailed it in a small boat. CWB 1:315; Morison, Champlain, 56–59; Edmund F. Slafter, ed., Champlain’s Voyages (Boston, 1878–82).

  47. CWB 1:316.

  48. Ibid. 1:317–20; Taft and Rindlaub, Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast, 107–110.

  49. CWB 1:325; Champlain’s Almouchiquois were Lescarbot’s and Biard’s Armouchiquois; cf. Marc Lescarbot, History of New France (Toronto, 1907) 2:308, 325, 3:144; Pierre Biard, “Relation de la Nouvelle France. Écrite en 1614,” Relations des Jesuites 3:208–09; John Smith, Complete Works (Chapel Hill, 1986) 1:328, 2:407. For a general discussion of ethnic groups in this part of Maine, see Bruce J. Bourque, Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine (Lincoln, Neb., 2001), 103–26; Bruce Bourque and Ruth Whitehead, “Trade and Alliances in the Contact Period,” Norumbega: American Beginnings, ed. Emerson W. Baker et al. (Lincoln, Neb., 1994), 327–41.

  50. CWB 1:327; Bourque, Twelve Thousand Years, 106; Howard S. Russell, Indian New England before the Mayflower (Hanover, 1980), 133–64.

  51. CWB 1:330.

  52. Ibid. 1:333.

  53. Ibid. 1:335.

  54. Ibid. 1:335.

  55. Ibid. 1:337.

  56. Ibid. 1:337–38; Lescarbot, History of New France 3:95; S. F. Cook, The Indian Population of New England in the Seventeenth Century (Berkeley, 1976), 29–35; William S. Simmons, Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore (Hanover, 1986), 15–16; Kathleen Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 1500–1650 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1996), 20–23.

  57. CWB 1:340–41.

  58. Ibid. 1:345.

  59. Ibid. 1:348–49.

  60. Ibid. 1:341–56; Cook, The Indian Population, 40–41.

  61. CWB 1:351; Sauer, Seventeenth Century America, 83.

  62. Ibid. 1:351–52; Sauer, Seventeenth Century America, 80–82.

  63. CWB 1:354.

  64. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:277–78; CWB 1:354–55.

  65. CWB 1:355.

  66. Ibid. 1:357.

  67. George Rosier, “The Voyage of George Waymouth, 1605,” rpt. in Charles Herbert Levermore, ed., Forerunners and Competitors of the Pilgrims and Puritans 2 vols. (New York, 1912) 1:335; CWB 1:365.

  68. Levermore, ed., Forerunners of the Pilgrims and Puritans 1:63–64, 67.

  69. Lescarbot, History of New France, 2:253.

  70. Ibid. 2:322; CWB 1:393.

  71. CWB 1:394.

  72. Ibid. 1:363, 395; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:324.

  73. For this custom in the Pacific Northwest see Helen Codere, Fighting with Property (New York, 1950); Gordon MacGregor, Warriors without Weapons (Chicago, 1946).

  74. CWB 1:395–96; Lescarbot, History of New France, 2:323–24. Both accounts are in fundamental agreement. Lescarbot was not present, but appears to have worked from an eyewitness account by Poutrincourt.

  75. CWB 1:398; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:324–25; 2:327.

  76. CWB 1:399–400.

  77. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:328; CWB 1:402.

  78. CWB 1:413–14; Cook, The Indian Population of New England, 40–45; Frank G. Speck, Territorial Subdivisions and Boundaries of the Wampanoag, Massachusetts, and Nauset Indians, Museum of the American Indian Publications Misc. Series 7 (1928), 1–152; Bragdon, Native People of Southern New England, 24.

  79. CWB 1:417.

  80. Ibid. 2:416.

  81. Ibid. 1:418.

  82. A contrasting example of Champlain’s cross-raising later appeared in his exploration of the Upper Ottawa Valley. See below, 310.

  83. CWB 1:422.

  84. Ibid. 1:422; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:330–37.

  85. Morison, Champlain, 82; CWB 1:421–22; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:330–37.

  10. PORT-ROYAL

  1. Marc Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France third edition, 3 vols., Paris, 1617; and ed. Edwin Tross 3 vols. (Paris, 1866); tr. as The History of New France, tr. W. L. Grant, ed. H. P. Biggar, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1907), 1:32–33.

  2. Marc Lescarbot, Une lettre inédite de Lescarbot publiée avec une notice biographique sur l’auteur, ed. G. Marcel (Paris, 1885), 7; Éric Thierry, Marc Lescarbot (vers 1570–1641). Un homme de plume au service de la Nouvelle-France (Paris, 2001), 124.

  3. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:344; Champlain, in Henry Percival Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 6 vols. and a portfolio of maps and drawings (CWB), (Toronto, 1922–36, reprinted 1971) 1:367.

  4. CWB 1:267, 269–70.

  5. Charles Bréard and Paul Bréard, Documents relatifs à la Marine Normande et à ses armements aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Rouen, 1889), 146, 200–06.

  6. Nicolas-Claude de Fabri, seigneur de Peiresc, “Observations de Peiresc sur les curiosités rapportées d’Acadie par Pierre du Gua, sieur de Mons,” Nov. 26, 1605 and March 13, 1606; Robert Le Blant and René Baudry, eds., Nouveaux documents sur Champlain et son époque, (Ottawa, 1967), 102–06; also Journal of Jehan Herouard, royal physician, ed. A.-Léo Ley-marie, “Le Canada pendant la jeunesse de Louis XIII,” Nova Francia 1 (1925), 161–70, at 169; Guy Binot, Pierre Dugua de Mons, Gentilhomme Royannais (Royan, 2004), 110; Elizabeth Jones, Gentlemen and Jesuits: Quests for Glory and Adventure in the Early Days of New France (Toronto, 1986), 63–64, 266–67; Marcel Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France: Le comptoir, 1604–1627 (Montreal, 1966) 2:50.

  7. CWB 1:277; 370; Trudel, Histoire de la Nouvelle-France 2:24, 34, 36, 50, 481, 485.

  8. CWB 1:370.

  9.
M. A. MacDonald, Fortune and La Tour: The Civil War in Acadia (Halifax, 2000), 4.

  10. CWB 1:373, 376; the result of early archaeology on the site appear in Ganong’s plate.

  11. CWB 1:376.

  12. An elaborate reconstruction was erected on a different site.

  13. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:281.

  14. Ibid. 2:316.

  15. CWB 1:371.

  16. Ibid. 1:373. On the gazebo or cabinet, see Samuel E. Morison, Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France (New York, 1972), 72.

  17. CWB 1:261–62; 169–70, 180–84.

  18. CWB 1:375; Lescarbot, History of New France 2:280–85.

  19. CWB 1:376.

  20. Ibid. 1:375–76, 449, 303–06; 2:29–63; 3:264–65; 5:213; 6:181; Kenneth J. Carpenter, The History of Scurvy and Vitamin C (Cambridge, 1986), 229–33; Stephen R. Bown, Scurvy (New York, 2003), 32.

  21. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:344.

  22. Adrien Huguet, Jean de Poutrincourt, fondateur de Port-Royal en Acadie, Vice-Roi du Canada, 1557–1615): campagnes, voyages et aventures d’un colonisateur sous Henri IV (Amiens and Paris, 1932), 3–138, is a very full and helpful account of Poutrincourt’s origins and early life.

  23. Huguet, Jean de Poutrincourt, 112–13, 297–98. His family had a long interest in America. One of Poutrincourt’s cousins had married into a Spanish Basque family and attempted to found a colony in America. After it failed he put his animals ashore on Sable Island, where their offspring remained for centuries.

  24. Lescarbot, History of New France 2:484–86. The second passage was drawn by Lescarbot from Psalms, 45:7. The English translation of these passages by W. L. Grant in the Champlain Society’s edition of The History of New France by Marc Lescarbot, 3 vols. (Toronto, 1911) 2:286–87, is not correct; the French text appears in the same edition, 2:531. For excellent discussions see Éric Thierry, Marc Lescarbot, 71–112; and Bernard Émont, Marc Lescarbot: mythes et rêves fondateurs de La Nouvelle-France (Paris, 2002), esp. 216–56, 289–300; and Louis-Martin, Marc Lescarbot: Le Chantre de l’Acadie (Quebec, 1997).