Samuel de Champlain

By Francine Legaré

A navigator and cartographer, Samuel de Champlain’s passion was for America, which he struggled to explore and have recognized. He still dreamed of reaching India, with its spices and its many riches, by continuing further to the West. But the land called New France – a harsh land from India – was his greatest love. He defended it fiercely to those in power in France and was responsible for its development. Champlain thus ensured the birth of the country that today is Canada. He is undisputedly the Father of New France.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Jan 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781770706767

Francine Legaré

A researcher and freelance writer, Francine Legaré lives in Quebec.

Book preview

Francine Legaré

Francine Legaré lives in Quebec City, where she works as a freelance researcher and writer. She studied journalism at Laval University and at Louvain-la-Neuve, in Belgium. When she returned, she wrote several research books for the Quebec government on health, justice, youth resources, the condition of women, the environment, and Quebec history. She has also written numerous articles in various magazines including the Gazette des femmes, to which she has contributed since 1996.

The translator: Jonathan Kaplansky

Jonathan Kaplansky works as a freelance literary translator in Ottawa; he completed Master's degrees in Translation at the University of Ottawa and in French Language and Literature at McGill. He has translated work by Hélène Rioux, Robert Dickson, Sylvie Massicotte, and Hervé Dumont and is currently translating biographies of two Canadian Premiers: René Lévesque and Louis Robichaud.

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Samuel de Champlain

Samuel de CHAMPLAIN

FATHER OF NEW FRANCE

Copyright © 2003 Francine Legaré and XYZ éditeur

English translation copyright © 2004 Jonathan Kaplansky and XYZ Publishing.

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Legaré, Francine, 1956-

Samuel de Champlain: Father of New France

(The Quest library; 22).

Translation of: Samuel de Champlain, père de la Nouvelle–France.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-894852-10-9

1. Champlain, Samuel de, 1567-1635. 2. Explorers – Canada – Biography.

3. Explorers – France – Biography. 4. Canada – History – To 1663 (New France).

I. Title. II. Series: Quest library; 22.

FC332.L4313 2004         971.01'13'092         C2004-940521-7

Legal Deposit: Second quarter 2004

National Library of Canada

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

XYZ Publishing acknowledges the support of The Quest Library project by the Canadian Studies Program and the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of Canada.

The publishers further acknowledge the financial support our publishing program receives from The Canada Council for the Arts, the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles.

Chronology: Michèle Vanasse

Index: Darcy Dunton

Layout: Édiscript enr.

Cover design: Zirval Design

Cover illustration: Francine Auger

Photo research: Michèle Vanasse

Printed and bound in Canada

International Rights: André Vanasse, tel. [phone] # 25

                             E-mail: [e-mail]

For Dominique, who left Europe by ship

to come live in Quebec City,

like Champlain.

Contents

Prologue: Mystery

1 Pleading before the Court of the King

2 Tourist in Mexico

3 Ethnographer and Cartographer in the Land of the Great Sagamo

4 Pioneer in Acadia

5 Founder in Quebec City

6 Warrior on Lake Champlain

7 A Wife Overseas

8 A Guest Despite Himself in Huronia

9 Defender of the Colony on Two Continents

10 A Frenchman in the Hands of Britain

11 Samuel de Champlain at the End of his Life

Chronology of

Samuel de Champlain

(1570–1635)

Prologue

Mystery

To describe Samuel de Champlain physically as fair or dark, or short or tall, would be simply a matter of conjecture. The few paintings of him that have been conserved were done by painters who made use of their imaginations rather than authentic sources. Counterfeit portraits. Certain people even claim that the portrait most often found in history textbooks depicts one Michel Particelli, a thief who passed himself off as a financial inspector under Louis XIV! Therefore, despite the important role in history played by the father of New France, we know nothing of his features or his stature. At most we may assume that to lead the life of tireless explorer as he did, he must have had both a hardy constitution and formidable energy.

But the enigmatic nature of this personality does not end there.

From the start, his time of birth is known only approximately as the records of the town where he was born disappeared in a fire.

We know very little about his childhood, and reconstruct it by deduction rather than by means of precise references.

Toward the age of thirty, according to his own writings, he purportedly visited the West Indies and Mexico. But his travel journal contains many improbabilities, casting doubt on the expedition.

Approximately ten years later, he rapidly wed; the strange union resulted in an unusual marriage.

In his sixties, he adopted children of which history has lost all trace.

At the very end of his life, a sudden impulse led him to rewrite his will, and rather than provide for his next of kin, he left his possessions to the Virgin Mary.

No one ever knew what became of him in death. His remains merged with the land of New France that he loved to his last breath.

And finally, did Champlain belong to the nobility of the era? Samuel Champlain or Samuel de Champlain? The sacrosanct particle de appears and disappears in texts written by him or that speak of him, so much so that our knowledge here remains vague.

So how can we really know Champlain? Despite the mystery, and luckily for us, he revealed himself mainly through his impressive works, writing in the journal he dutifully kept for approximately thirty years and that was published, notably to convince kings and those with power that the efforts of colonization were worth the trouble and cost. His observations, along with other documents of the era, allow us to describe the man as precisely as possible. Yet, not holding the key to all the secrets, sometimes we had to report those facts that appeared most probable.

Passages from the journal are reproduced in the pages that follow to give voice to the visionary, impassioned discoverer. In some instances, however, we had to make minor adjustments to the seventeenth-century expressions and turns of phrase, to avoid bogging down the reading of what reaches us some four hundred years later.

Illustration of a vessel taken from the map of New France made by Champlain in 1612 and published in The Voyages of the Sieur de Champlain of Saintonge, Captain in Ordinary for the King in the Navy.

1

Pleading before the Court of the King

I have always felt intensely drawn to the discoveries of New France; increasingly this has led me to wish to cross land to finally gain perfect knowledge of the country, by way of its rivers and lakes, which are numerous, and also to discover the people who live there, with the goal of bringing them to know God. I have worked at this continually for fourteen to fifteen years now, able to progress only slightly in my plans, not having been assisted as would have been necessary in such an undertaking.

Agloomy, rainy Paris winter. A morning so dark that it seems like evening. Clinging, cold, damp fog enshrouds everything: passersby, stone houses, slippery sidewalks. Greyness. A man hurries his horse along. And yet he is accustomed to the cold! New France appears in his thoughts, luminous beneath the biting January cold. Snow and bright sky. To infinity. This country lives within him constantly, even though they have been separated by an ocean for several months now. How many times, and again today, will he have to describe to the Court of the King the riches of this immense land and the urgent need to provide the necessary amounts to establish a lasting colony?

He pictures the scene awaiting him in a few moments. He, Samuel de Champlain, pleading his life's cause before His Majesty Louis XIII and his counsellors. His audience listening to him, at times distracted, irritated at still having to discuss France in America.

It is 1619. Champlain is approaching fifty and has spent half his life navigating. In the past fifteen years, he has gone back and forth between France and Canada, seeking brave men to establish a new country across the Atlantic and financial backing for his plans of colonization. Eleven years earlier, in 1608, he had carefully selected a piece of land and some cliffs jutting out into the St. Lawrence River. There he had founded an establishment that was not a city or even a village. For the moment it remains a starting point whose importance he has to defend constantly.

Approaching the Louvre Palace, the horseman stops in the rain and hears himself express aloud the profound hope that has motivated him for so long. Sir, forests as far as the eye can see, fertile land and an abundance of furs await. An enormous river carries its waves right up to you. Now it is up to you to pass it on to God and to France.

Quebec has existed for over ten years, Monsieur de Champlain. Well, when I say existed…

Once again the King was reducing an impressive undertaking to something very small. The vague dream of a madman. For what really existed over there? Quebec saw the light of day with a handful of men and the construction of a fort. Today,