SHECATICA AND JACQUES CARTIER 



house in the whole bay is the substantial one 

 in the northwest corner belonging to the tele- 

 graph-operator, Mr. Louis Robin. At the head 

 of the bay we entered what seemed to be a 

 narrow rapid river, and, sailing close to the 

 rocky shore, began our voyage up Shecatica 

 Inlet. I am inclined to agree with Professor 

 W. F. Ganong ^ that this inlet is probably that 

 to which Jacques Cartier refers as the St. 

 James River, and that the harbor he named 

 after himself is in reality Cumberland Harbor. 

 Any one who has entered Shecatica Inlet, or 

 merely passed its mouth, might easily mistake 

 it for a river. The generally accepted view, 

 however, is that Shecatica Inlet is Jacques 

 Cartier's Harbor and it is so designated on 

 maps. Ganong does not accept the idea, which 

 at first sight seems plausible, that the name 

 Shecatica, or Shekatika, is an Indian corrup- 

 tion of Jacques Cartier. Lemoine's Diction- 

 naire Frangais-Montagnais — which, however, 

 is not infallible — says that the word comes 

 from shikatikau, and signifies, "there are 

 bushes around the water." 



' Jacques Cartier's First Voyage, Transactions Royal Soci- 

 ety of Canada, sec. u (1887), pp. 121-36. 



189 



