SAILING CRAFT 61 



which, from Father Hennepin's description, 

 seems to have been a kind of brig. She was 

 of fifty or sixty tons and apparently carried a 

 real jib. She was launched at the mouth of 

 Cayuga Creek in the Niagara peninsula in 

 1679. Her career was interesting, but short 

 and disastrous. She sailed west across Lake 

 Erie, on through Lakes St Clair and Huron, 

 and reached Green Bay on Lake Michigan, 

 where she took in a cargo of fur. On her 

 return voyage she was lost with all hands. 



In the eighteenth century shipbuilding in 

 Quebec continued to flourish. The yards at the 

 mouth of the St Charles had been enlarged, 

 and even then there was so much naval con- 

 struction in hand that private merchant vessels 

 could not be built as fast as they were wanted. 

 In 1743 some French merchants proposed build- 

 ing five or six vessels for the West India trade, 

 besides twenty-five or thirty more for local 

 trade among the West Indian islands. A new 

 shipyard and a dry-dock were hurriedly built ; 

 and there was keen competition for ship- 

 carpenters. In 1753 L'Algonkin, a frigate of 

 seventy-two guns, was successfully launched. 

 The shipwrights experimented freely with 

 Canadian woods, of which the white oak proved 

 the best. But the Canadian-built vessels for 



