104 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXIII. 



June, and after determining the latitude of the 

 portage on the Hull side as 45° 38' (actually 

 45° 26) he proceeded up Lake Deschenes the same 

 day. The barren Eardley hills on the one side 

 and the sandy shores of Constant Bay on the other 

 gave him a poor opinion of the surrounding country, 

 and he puts it down as "very unpromising." The 

 party passed the night "on a very pleasant island" — 

 doubtless Mohr island — and on the 5th June they 

 portaged at the Chats falls and paddled up Lac des 

 Chats. Champlain speaks of the Madawaska river 

 as a tributary at this point, but says nothing of the 

 Mississippi or the Bonnechere. His remark that 

 "the lands about the before-mentioned lake are 

 sandy" shows that he must have gone up by the 

 Quebec shore, and was struck by the long arid 

 stretches of Kilroy's bay and Norway bay. In Lac 

 des Chats they camped as usual on an island, evid- 

 ently for safety, as the Algonquins were always des- 

 perately afraid of a surprise attack by the Iroquois. 

 On this island Champlain recounts that he "saw 

 a number of fine red cypress [cedars] the first I had 

 seen in this country, out of which I made a cross, 

 which I planted at one end of the island on an 

 elevated and conspicuous spot, with the arms of 

 France, as I had done in other places where we 

 had stopped. I called this island Sainte Croix." 

 Red cedar has been extinct for many years on Lac 

 des Chats, and there is no island in the lake with 

 any marked elevation on it, so it is impossible to 

 identify Holy Cross island with any certainty; but 

 probably it is one of the Braeside islands, or per- 

 haps the island opposite Norway bay. 



Next day, Thursday, 6th June, they ascended 

 the Chenaux rapids to within about a mile of the 

 present village of Portage du Fort, and landed on 

 the Ontario side at a point known in ^after years 

 as Gould's Landing. Champlain took the latitude 

 of this place and says he found it 46° 40'. In 

 reality the place is about 45° 34'; and in some way 

 he had made a mistake of a degree in his calcula- 

 tion. "Here," Champlain says, "our savages left 

 the sacks containing their provisions and their less 

 necessary articles in order to be lighter for going 

 over-land and avoiding several falls which it was 

 necessary to pass." And here de Vignau, who 

 must have been contemplating the approaching ex- 

 posure of his falsehood with ever increasing anxiety, 

 tried to persuade Champlain that the best route was 

 up the Ottawa, his hope, evident in the sequel, being 

 that the long succession of rapids above Portage du 

 Fort would bring disaster on the expedition, or at 

 least discourage Champlain and cause him to 

 turn back. But "our savages said to him, you arc 

 tired of living, and to mc that I ought not to believe 

 him, and that he did not tell the truth." Convinced 



that the Indians knew the best way, Champlain 

 took their advice, and the party climbed to the higher 

 land above the river, and travelled southward a 

 couple of miles to the first of a chain of long narrow 

 lakes that lie across the base of the large peninsula 

 formed by the great swing of the Ottawa river to- 

 wards the north. Until railways extended into this 

 part of Ontario in the seventies of the last century, 

 the route here followed by Champlain was still the 

 principal road to the upper Ottawa. Steamboats 

 plied on Lac des Chats from the head of the Chats 

 rapids to Gould's Landing, and thence traveller? 

 were conveyed by stage to Muskrat lake where 

 they embarked on a steamboat that carried them 

 to within a few miles of Pembroke. 



This was the longest and hardest portage the ex- 

 pedition had struck yet. Champlain himself carried 

 three arquebuses and three paddles, his cloak and 

 "some small articles," among which it is safe to say 

 was the famous astrolabe. The others, he says 

 "were somewhat more heavily loaded, but more 

 troubled by the mosquitoes than by their loads." 

 They passed through the string of four small lakes, 

 the first three of which are known as Coldingham, 

 Town and Catherine, the fourth being apparently 

 nameless, and stopped for the night on the shore of 

 the more important Olmsted lake. 



"Ncus nous reposasmes sur le bord d'vn estang 

 qui estoit assez agreable, & fismes du feu pour chasser 

 les mousquites, qui nous molestoient fort, I'importu- 

 nite desquels est si estrange, qu'il est impossible d'en 

 pouuoir faire la descriptio." Thus Champlain: If 

 he returned to-day, he would see many and as- 

 tounding changes in the country he discovered ; but 

 amcng all that was new and wonderful, he would 

 again find in the month of June the same old mos- 

 quitoes, the importunity of which is as extraordinary 

 as ever. 



In the morning (Friday, June 7th), they paddled 

 down Olmsted lake, and on foot crossed the three 

 miles or so of country that separates it from Muskrat 

 lake, as the connecting streams are not navigable 

 even by a bark canoe. A small lake about a mile 

 long, now called by the popular name of Green 

 lake, lay in their way, and although Champlain does 

 not mention it, it is very likely that the Indians 

 were glad to take advantage of even such a short 

 piece of water as this in their long portage. It was 

 on the right bank of the small stream flowing out 

 of Green lake, and some 200 yards from the foot 

 of the lake, that the astrolabe was found. Some- 

 where between Olmsted lake and Muskrat lake, 

 Champlain and his men encountered what foresters 

 know as a windfall. The thick growth of pines 

 had been blown down by a tornado, and it was 

 with great difficulty that the party made their way 



