ASSOCIATIONS OF LAKE HURON 105 



Huron Lake is rich in historic association. On 

 its shores began one of the greatest human dramas 

 that the world has known. The dramatis personcs 

 comprised the Jesuits of France and the North 

 American Indians. Faith and superstition, civiliza- 

 tion and savagery, were set in ever-varying scenes, 

 amidst the wild grandeur of forest and lake until the 

 curtain fell on the closing act at Lake Erie. It was 

 by Huron lake that Brcboeuf found himself in the 

 seventeenth century, forsaken by his Indian guides. 

 He, in company with two more Jesuits, had descended 

 the French River, intent upon forming a mission to 

 the Huron tribes. Breboeuf's canoe was separated 

 from his companions' in the rapids, and he was 

 compelled to make his way alone to the Indian head- 

 quarters. The conditions under which these tribes 

 lived, the rites he witnessed, and the crude super- 

 stitions by which they were swayed, supplied little 

 for a basis on which to erect a habitation of the 

 Christian Faith which the Jesuits came to establish. 



In the forest by that very lake the first mission- 

 ary witnessed the Huron's feast of the dead, and in it 

 may have read the crude shapings of belief in immor- 

 tality. The reverence paid to the crumbling bones 

 of ancestors testified to the belief that a soul resided 

 there. It is an interesting speculation to consider 

 how Brcboeuf was affected by the recital of the 

 virtues and bravery of the dead to which he listened 

 as these crude children of the forest made their 



