62 FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



Etienne Charest, tanner of Levis, has left a narrative of the 

 voyage made by him to his concession in 1704, in the course 

 of which he says: "The French settlement (that of the port 

 of Brest) is 20 leagues from it (the great Mecatina) ; its 

 appearance is very gay. There is a very fine harbor there, 

 into which all kinds of vessels can enter; more than 100 

 ships could be there together .... Above the fort at 

 the head of the bay are three very pretty hills, on the sum- 

 mits of which are small lakes, in which trout and salmon 

 abound to such a degree that with two or three hand lines 

 or a common net one might tackle enough to feed a pretty 

 large garrison, and half a league lower down is the Esqui- 

 maux River, full of salmon of extraordinary size. ' ' 



Kessessasskiou River, the north-eastern boundary of 

 Gourtemanche 's domain, was the Indian name of what is now 

 known as the Hamilton River, so that LeGardeur controlled 

 the entire coast line from the River Kegashka to Hamilton 

 Inlet, with its valuable fishing and hunting privileges. He 

 established his headquarters at Phelypeaux Bay, now Bradore, 

 and built there a fort which he called Fort Pontchartrain. 

 This bay, which was called Les Islettes by Jacques Cartier, 

 was known later as Baie des Espagnols, and it was doubtless 

 the ruins of Courtemanche 's fort that were mistaken by Mr. 

 Samuel Robertson in the early part of the last century for 

 those of the imaginary "town" of Brest. 



Courtemanche found the bones of whales piled up like 

 sticks of wood, one on the other, in such quantities that he 

 estimated one place to contain the remains of two thousand 

 to three thousand animals. He counted ninety skulls of pro- 

 digious size in one little creek. The Basques had been com- 

 pelled to abandon the fishery, not from failure in the supply 

 of whales, but because of the attacks and depredations of the 

 Esquimaux. Courtemanche met a St. Malo fisherman at Fort- 

 eau, who informed him that his countrymen had carried on 

 a fishery there " de tons temps." 



In 1714 Courtemanche obtained a renewal of his grant. 



