Canadians at Table: Food, Fellowship, and Folklore

by Dorothy Duncan

  The Order of Good Cheer, as imaginatively sketched by C.W. Jeffreys in 1925, attempted to boost morale in Samuel de Champlain’s precarious colony in what is now Nova Scotia.

  Library and Archives Canada

  When Hébert did return with his wife, Marie, and their family, they became the first true colonists who came to till the soil and establish a home. Marie would have used her memories of medieval cooking traditions and utensils brought from her home in France to preserve and prepare for the table the harvest from the garden and fields and the meats, fish, and game from the river and the forest.

  Champlain had already established a habitation at Stadacona in 1608 and planted a garden in which European plants such as cabbages, beets, radishes, lettuce, and other necessary vegetables and herbs flourished. Quebec, the trading post and struggling colony, was at a turning point when Hébert returned, for Cardinal Richelieu, the king’s chief minister and the most powerful man in France, suddenly became interested in it. The Company of New France, or Company of One Hundred Associates, was formed in 1627, pledging to send out large numbers of colonists and to support them for three years.[10]

  In addition, devoted men and women arrived to found missions, churches, schools, and hospitals. There had been Jesuit missionaries at Port Royal, and in 1615, three Récollet brothers came to Quebec. Soon after they went out as missionaries to the Mi’kmaqs of Acadia, the Abenaki of the Saint John Valley, and to the Hurons. A decade later the Jesuits were invited to share this work. Unfortunately, there were many occasions when the two cultures — the First Nations and the newly arrived clergy — clashed over the concept of right and wrong, life after death, God and worship, superstitions, belief in magic, feasts and ceremonials. It is thanks to the letters, diaries, and writings of the Jesuits and Récollets, and of the sisters of the Ursuline Order who arrived in 1639, that many descriptions of the people, customs, dangers, and problems in seventeenth-century Quebec survived.

  In addition to the spiritual benefits, there were many unexpected financial benefits to the new colony because of the arrival of the clergy. Just one example was the discovery in 1716 by Joseph-François Lafitau, who was serving as a missionary in Sault Saint-Louis (Kahnawake), south of Hochelaga (present-day Montreal), that ginseng was a local plant. He knew this plant had been considered a medical wonder in China for thousands of years, but that it was in short supply where his fellow missionaries also served, and thus its export from Canada to China began. Natives as well as newcomers started to gather the plant and sell it to the French merchants on the Montreal market. From there it was shipped to France, then to Canton, where it was purchased by Chinese merchants. They in turn sold it to doctors and pharmacists in the Empire of China. It took thirty-six weeks for this cumbersome system to move ginseng root bought in Montreal to where it would sell for sixty times its price in Canton.[11]

  Meanwhile, Champlain, fur trader, explorer, geographer, cartographer, administrator, became known as the Father of New France and went on to explore the St. Lawrence Basin and the Great Lakes, the Ottawa River, and the country of the Hurons, often guided by members of the First Nations. He has left us an invaluable record in his journals of the plants, animals, soil, foods, beverages, and medicines that were important to both the First Nations and the newcomers.[12]

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Chain of Men Stretched Across the Continent

  25 being Christmas, wee made merry remembering our Friends in England having for Liquor Brandy and strong beer and for Food plenty of Partridges and Venson besides what ye shipps provisions afforded.

  THE ABOVE DESCRIPTION OF A CHRISTMAS DINNER in Canada was fortunately recorded by a Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader, Thomas Gorst, in his journal in 1670. The guests seated at the table in the newly constructed Charles Fort (later called Rupert’s House and still later Fort Rupert) included Hudson’s Bay Company governor Charles Bayley, Médard Chouart, Sieur Des Groseilliers, his brother-in-law, Pierre-Ésprit Radisson, and Captain Zachariah Gillam. The ships Wivenhoe and Prince Rupert were anchored nearby in James Bay.

  The two Frenchmen, Radisson and Groseilliers, had a great deal to celebrate that day. They had both come to New France as young men and had worked and travelled in the St. Lawrence region and beyond as explorers, coureurs de bois, and fur traders among the Huron, Cree, and Sioux nations. They realized the untold wealth in furs to be found in the forests surrounding the “Bay of the North” (Hudson Bay) and lobbied both in the New World and in the Old World for permission to trade in the region. Finally, a few months before, on May 2, 1670, King Charles II of England had granted his cousin, Prince Rupert, a royal charter that gave trading rights to the area known as Rupert’s Land to the “Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay.” No one at that time knew the size of the land mass involved (it was actually 40 percent of present-day Canada, plus some territory that is now part of the United States of America), but the coveted “trading rights” were for furs, particularly beaver pelts.

  At that time the demand for prime beaver pelts was at its height, with ready markets in Britain and the rest of Europe. The nobility was demanding fine furs for robes, jackets, capes, and muffs, and gentlemen who could afford a fine felt hat insisted that it be made of the soft downy undercoat of the beaver. As European beavers had been trapped out, it was imperative that a fresh source be found.

  The fur merchants in Europe had learned from explorers such as Jacques Cartier that when he sailed into the Baie des Chaleurs in 1534 he was met by members of the Mi’kmaq nation waving furs on sticks to let him know they wanted to trade. In addition, the fishermen harvesting the Grand Banks confirmed that when they went ashore to dry their catch the First Nations continued to barter fine pelts with them. When the fishermen returned home, they often made more money from the pelts than from the fish. The pelts from Canadian beaver were particularly desirable because:

  To be of good quality, thick and heavy, the beaver-pelt must come from an animal taken during the winter, and taken in as hard a climate as possible. Then the skin carries two kinds of fur; close to the skin is a thick mass of beaver-wool, down or duvet as the French called it; on top is a glossy fur of long guard hairs. It was the beaver wool above all which the felters wanted but it was difficult to get the beaver-wool out from a prime winter’s skin without also tearing out the guard hairs and thereby completely destroying the skin. English and French felters liked to get their beaver-wool from skins from which the guard hairs had already been removed and this made them dependent on coat beaver. These were skins which the Indians had worn for a season and in the process lost their guard hairs and become thoroughly greasy. The custom of wearing beaver, an art of doing so in such a way as to impart a maximum of grease, was particular to the northern Indians of Canada.[1]

  This fascination with beaver pelts, to the exclusion of the rest of the animal, must have surprised the First Nations. They, too, coveted the beaver, because every part of it was important to them. The meat was tasty, with beaver tails a special treat. They skimmed off the fat as it cooked to be used as medicine. The teeth and claws were polished for ceremonial wear, and the Natives used the bitter orange-brown substance known as musk to reduce fevers and treat aching joints. Modern science has shown that Aspirin, which is used for the same purpose, contains some of the same ingredients.[2]

  Alexander Henry, an experienced English trader, travelled up the Ottawa River in 1761 and observed the simple, compact rations of the voyageurs, and the way in which they were absolutely fundamental to the whole fur-trading system for, as he explains, regular food would have taken up too much space in the canoes:

  The village of L’Arbre Croche [twenty miles west of Fort Michilimackinac] supplies, as I have said, the maize, or Indian corn, with which the canoes are victualled. This species of grain is prepared for use, by boiling it in a strong lie, after which the husk may be easily removed; and it is next mashed and dried. In this state, it is soft and friable, like rice. The
allowance, for each man, on the voyage, is a quart a day; and a bushel, with two pounds of prepared fat, is reckoned to be a month’s subsistence. No other allowance is made, of any kind; not even salt; and bread is never thought of. The men, nevertheless, are healthy, and capable of performing their heavy labour. This mode of victualling is essential to the trade, which being pursued at great distances, and in vessels so small as canoes, will not admit of the use of other food. If the men were to be supplied with bread and pork, the canoe would not carry a sufficiency for six months; and the ordinary duration of the voyage is not less than fourteen. The difficulty which would belong to an attempt to reconcile any other man, than Canadians, to this fare, seems to secure to them, and their employers, the monopoly of the fur-trade…. I bought more than a hundred bushels, at forty livres per bushel…. I paid at the rate of a dollar per pound for the tallow, or prepared fat, to mix with it.[3]

  Free traders (as the competitors of the Hudson’s Bay Company were called) became involved in this lucrative business, and many combined forces by forming partnerships and companies, but it was the North West Company that for many years challenged the powerful Hudson’s Bay Company and their decision to build their forts around the bay and let the First Nations come to them. The North West Company realized the importance of building their trading posts in the interior of the country, where the First Nations lived, trapped, and hunted. The rival company also recognized the importance of adequately provisioning the men involved in the trade, and not leaving their survival and the survival of the business to chance.

  The North West Company partners dined in fine style every evening as they travelled by canoe between Montreal and the organization’s inland headquarters at Fort William in today’s Ontario.

  Fort William Historical Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario

  To accomplish this, the company formed one of the most innovative partnerships ever seen in Canada, including an unlikely combination of Scottish and English merchants, French Canadian voyageurs, First Nation guides, canoe-makers, advisers, suppliers of survival foods, and Métis (offspring of a mixed white-Native marriage) labourers, trappers, traders, and voyageurs. This partnership solved the slow, complicated business of buying or bartering for furs from the First Nations in the northwestern regions of Canada and moving them to ships on the East Coast, by which they could then be shipped to markets overseas. The North West Company developed, and maintained, a long supply route that stretched from today’s Montreal to the Pacific Ocean, with an inland headquarters between the two. This plan was unique, and just as complex as the operation of a modern airline. A modern airline depends on gasoline, while the North West Company relied on specific provisions for each of the groups involved in the trade — all of which expected and enjoyed quite different fare. Their success also depended on the goodwill and cooperation of everyone involved to provide the fare in a timely manner.

  The first inland headquarters for the North West Company was built at Grand Portage, and when the boundary between the United States and British territories was redrawn by the Treaty of Versailles in 1785, it moved to Fort William (at today’s Thunder Bay) on the north shore of Lake Superior. Fort William became the company’s trans-shipping centre, with forty-two buildings set in a rectangle and its own farm adjoining the fort to provide provisions such as grain, herbs, fresh vegetables, milk, and meat for both the regular staff and the Rendezvous that was held there annually during the summer months. The land behind the fort and on both sides of it was cleared and under tillage. Barley, peas, oats, Indian corn, potatoes, as well as other grains and vegetables were grown there. Seven horses, thirty-two cows and bulls, and a large number of sheep were kept on the farm, as well.[4]

  How did this unique system work? To overcome the short summers and long winters in Canada, many of the partners of the company wintered in Montreal, spending their time assembling the trade goods, supervising the warehouses along the St. Lawrence River, and preparing for the year ahead. The rest of the partners manned the inland posts in the West and the far Northwest, trading and bartering directly with the First Nations for the pelts. They, too, were preparing for the year ahead. As soon as the ice was gone from the lakes and rivers, both groups started for Fort William. The inland traders used small canots du nord, which could be paddled by six men and portaged by two, and which held two tons of pelts and provisions for the thousand-mile journey. The Montreal merchants used Montreal canoes, or canots du maitre, which were large freight canoes, holding four tons of freight and each requiring ten French Canadian or Métis voyageurs as paddlers to cover approximately the same distance.

  They [the canoes] reached lengths of forty feet, with a six-foot beam and a depth of two feet. The bow and stern curved upwards, often painted with animal or other designs. They weighed only five hundred pounds but they could carry as many as sixty men or fifty barrels of flour. They could be manufactured from cedar and pine and birch bark for as little as fifty dollars and would last for five or six years. First time travellers blanched when they saw their intended craft loaded to the gunwales perhaps a scant six inches from the water, but the Nor’westers calculated losses on voyages as low as one-half of one percent.

  The canoe fleet carried a mess tent, 30 feet by 15 feet, and a separate sleeping tent and comfortable bed for each partner, carpets for their feet, beaver robes for their knees. The transport canoes went on ahead so that when the gentlemen reached the selected site for the night camp, a great fire was leaping, meat was sizzling, wine bottles were uncorked.[5]

  American author Washington Irving, one of the guests of the North West Company, described the journey from Montreal:

  They ascended the river in great state, like sovereigns making a progress, or rather like Highland chieftains navigating their subject lakes. They were wrapped in rich furs, their huge canoes freighted with every convenience and luxury, and manned by Canadian voyageurs, as obedient as Highland clansmen. They carried up with them cooks and bakers, together with delicacies of every kind, and abundances of choice wines for the banquets which attended this great convocation. Happy were they, too, if they could meet with some distinguished stranger; above all, some titled member of the British nobility, to accompany them on this stately occasion, and grace their high solemnities.[6]

  In addition to the partners and the comforts they needed on the journey, here is a partial list of the commodities, particularly food and beverages, listed in the “Scheme for the NW Outfit” in 1794 that would have been transported to the inland headquarters to provision the fort: “10 kegs sugar, 8 kegs salt, 32 kegs butter, 80 kegs pork, 230 kegs grease, 40 kegs beef, 400 kegs high wines, 50 kegs rum, 10 kegs port wine, 10 kegs brandy, 20 kegs shrub, 3 kegs sausages, 17 bags green peas.”[7]

  Meanwhile, Ross Cox, a Dublin-born fur trader who later became the Irish correspondent of the London Morning Herald, describes the French Canadian canoe men’s rations in 1817. They present a striking contrast to the food and beverages of the partners:

  I know of no people capable of enduring so much hard labour as the Canadians, or so submissive to superiors. In voyages of six months’ duration, they commence at daybreak and from thence to night-fall hard paddling and carrying goods occupy their time without intermission…. Their rations at first view may appear enormous. Each man is allowed eight pounds of solid meat per diem, such as buffalo, deer, horse, etc., and ten pounds if there be bone in it. In the autumnal months, in lieu of meat, each man receives two large geese or four ducks. They are supplied with fish in the same proportion. It must, however, be recollected that these rations are unaccompanied by bread, biscuit, potatoes, or, in fact by vegetables of any description.

  At Christmas and New Year they are served out with flour to make cakes or puddings, and each man receives half a pint of rum. This they call a regale, and they are particularly grateful for it.[8]

  The Nor’Westers coming to Fort William from the inland posts also had to provision their teams. They soon learned that dried meat and fish, ber
ries and greens from the forest, all took space in the canoes, and precious time could be wasted hunting and fishing. The First Nations introduced the newcomers to pemmican, made from dried buffalo, elk, or deer meat, pounded into a powder, mixed with dried berries, packed into a leather bag, then sealed with grease. Light, durable, and highly nourishing, the bags of pemmican were easily stored in a canoe, and thus pemmican became the staple diet of the canoe man. Small amounts of pemmican replaced large amounts of regular food, freeing up precious time and space to carry more furs and more trade goods in both directions.

  Pemmican was used on voyages in the far interior. This was kind of pressed buffalo meat, pounded fine, to which hot grease was added, and the whole left to form a mould in a bag of buffalo skin. When properly made, pemmican would remain edible for more than one season. Its small bulk and great nutritional value made it highly esteemed by all voyageurs. From it they made a dish called “Rubbaboo” … it is a favourite dish with the northern voyageurs, when they could get it. It consists simply of pemmican made into a kind of soup by boiling water. Flour is added when it can be obtained, and it is generally considered more palatable with a little sugar.[9]