THE HISTOEY OP CANADA. S 



threw open to the world the resources of the great Northwest. The latter was the fore- 

 runner of that baud of British men of science, engineers, army officers and gentlemen 

 travellers who have rendered our knowledge of the Hudson Bay Territory authentic and 

 full, and made ready the way for the revelations which Senator SL-hultz's Parliamentary 

 Committee have just spread before us, of the immense Athabasca-Mackenzie valley, with 

 its mineral, woodland and cereal wealth. As man must have in view a material object — the 

 need of food and clothing, and the storing away of a little wallet for evil days or old age — 

 these great travellers of the wilderness were doubtless mainly moved by the profits of bar- 

 ter in furs and skins, after they learned from Cartier's mistake that there were no precious 

 metals or stones in the laud. The hunt and traffic of the bear, beaver, wildcat, cariboo, 

 ermine, fox, marten, moose, muskrat, puma, otter and wolf, were quite enough to draw 

 the young and daring from their stockades at Quebec, Three RiA'ers, Villemarie and 

 Cataraqui, especially in the earlier days when the trade in peltries was open to all, and 

 the exportation to France not controlled by powerful monopolies. But beyond this 

 motive of gain and money-making, a lofty and romantic impulse is plainly seen in these 

 legendary explorations, giving vent to the buoyant wants of youth and health, at sight of 

 a new country, with its woods, plains, rivers and lakes, its fish and its game, and the 

 inuin- haunts of the copper-skinned natives ; while above all there was the pride of spread- 

 ing the realm and reign of France over a new continent, proclaimed by cross and pillar, 

 or stamped on leaden plates, from the days of Cartier down to 1763, when the fleur-de-lys 

 was planted on a limestone blufl\ilong the Mississippi, betwixt the mouths of the Ohio, 

 Missouri and Illinois, and the name St. Louis was given to the spot, which outpost, in 

 less than one hundred years, has become the fifth city of the United States. 



III. 



The romance of missions and martyrs is perhaps the brightest feature of our early 

 history. "When blood is spilled for a cause, we may well halt and think. It is not every 

 man that is privileged to lay down his life freely, and not every cause that is worthy of a 

 human life. But the story of the Indian missions of Canada is such that a sceptical world 

 may neither smile nor sneer at it. There is not a more dramatic page in modern history. 

 The missionary often went ahead of the explorer, as Bancroft has observed. Le Caron, 

 the Franciscan, reached Allumette Island, before Champlain ; the Jesuit Jogues traced out 

 the path to the Mohawk valley with his own blood, and the black robe was the first to 

 discover the great neutral nation spread out along the shore of Lake Erie, between Lakes 

 Ontario and Huron, and severing the Iroquois from the Hurons on their original hunting 

 grounds. There was not a single Indian tribe in the whole stretch of land, known or 

 heard of by the Frenchmen of the time, that was not visited by missionaries. The 

 Abenakis and Micmacs of Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New 

 Brunswick; the Montagnais of Labrador and the north of the St. Lawrence to Hudson 

 Bay ; the Hurons and Algonquins of Quebec ; the Iroquois of New York, between Lake 

 Ontario and Hudson River; the Shawnees, Pottowattomies, Eries, Illinois and Missouris, 

 from Michillimackinac and the Lake of the Woods to the head springs of Itasca: all 

 these were seen by the men of prayer who lived among them, taught them all that they 



