May 4. 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM 
689 
deavors to extend the boundaries of France. 
One of his battles with the savages, which 
seemed an insignificant one, really deserves to 
be reckoned with the thirteen decisive battles 
of the world. It was fought near Lake 
Oneida,* New York, against a few Iroquois 
warriors, a few Hurons helping Champlain. 
This that seemed of no importance—a mere 
skirmish—enlisted the sympathies of the pow¬ 
erful Iroquois on the side of the English 
against the French in the French and Indian 
war. With this powerful aid the English 
finally overcame the French and succeeded in 
becoming the masters of the American continent. 
Champlain enlisted the services of five 
Recollet priests in the evangelization of the 
American Indian. These priests were Father 
La Caron, Du Plessy. D’Albeau, Dennis Jamay, 
Brother Pacifique. Of these. La Caron, while 
not the first man to see the French River, was 
probably the second, and has written a most 
interesting account of his journey from 
Quebec to Lake Nipissing. Although La 
Caron made this journey just five years after 
Hendrick Hudson discovered the river that 
bears his name, La Caron’s course may still 
be traced. He came with a party of Huron 
Indian traders who were returning from an 
expedition to Hochelaga, the present site of 
Montreal. They came up the St. Lawrence 
River to the Ottawa, up the Ottawa, stopping 
at Alummette Island, passed the rapids of 
Joaquim and Caribou to the capital of the 
Mattawa Indians at the mouth of the Mat- 
tawa. Here, turning to the left of the turbulent 
Ottawa, they paddled up the beautiful Mat- 
) tawa forty miles to Trout Lake, thence over 
the Long Portage to Lake Nipissing at North 
Bay. Of this trip, Father La Caron writes: 
“It would be hard to tell you how tired I 
was from paddling my canoe all day long with 
all my strength among Indians, carrying my 
canoe around rapids, half-starved all the while, 
for we had nothing to eat but sagamite, a sort 
of coarse porridge made of pounded corn.” 
To imitate the custom of his patron saint, 
St. Francis, La Caron went in his bare feet. 
On my first trip down the French River, in 
1903, I suffered terribly from the mosquitoes 
1 and black flies, so that I read with feelings or 
- genuine compassion I,a Caron’s narrative of 
| sorrow. He wrote: “Had I not kept my face 
covered, mosquitoes would have blinded me, 
so pestiferous and poisonous are these pests. 
1 hey not only torment you by day, but at 
j night they get into your nostrils, your mouth 
and eyes, and make such a noise that they 
i prevent you from saying your prayers.” 
bather La Caron's sufferings may be appre¬ 
ciated, when it is known that mosquitoes so 
1 torment bear, moose and deer that these large 
1 creatures, driven mad by the terrible torture, 
I ar *d blinded by the poisonous bites, wander 
around and finally die of starvation. How¬ 
ever, by July 1 the black flies are gone, and 
by July 15, the mosquitoes are not so numer- 
! ous as to seriously interfere with your pleas¬ 
ure. Some mosquito netting over your cot- 
I tage doors and windows prevents any annoy- 
| ance during the night, and during the day 
, fbese pests are not noticed. Last season being 
j very dry and hot, all pools were dried up, and 
we had no mosouitoes. 
Probably at Nichols Pond, New York. 
THE GRAND CHAUDIERE. 
From a photograph by Dr. Andrew Graydon. 
Father La Caron later writes of his experi¬ 
ence in winter: 
“When the sagamite was done and game 
seemed to have vanished from the forests of 
the country of the Nipissing, we were com 
pelled to eat rock tripe, a species of cabbage¬ 
like moss, which when boiled made a gruel like 
glue—not very nutritious—and which, when 
eaten, pasted our lips together as it dried.” 
Near the end of his journey the worthy 
father writes: 
"Great as was our suffering and sacrifice for 
these savages, I felt amply repaid when I re¬ 
membered that all these dusky infidels needed 
was a drop of water to make them children 
of God.” 
Stephen Brule was perhaps the first white 
man to visit the French River, in 1613, six 
years after the settlement at Jamestown in 
Virginia. Samuel Champlain held a council 
meeting, which was attended by the French ex¬ 
plorers and some Nipissing Indians. These 
Nipissings, or Nipriens, as they were then 
called, had come down the St. Lawrence on a 
trading expedition from the French River 
country to Hochelaga, now Montreal. At that 
meeting it was agreed that Champlain was to 
take with him to Honileur, France, one of the 
Nipissings, and the Nipissings were to hold as 
hostage one of the Frenchmen. Brule volun¬ 
teered, and spent the following winter of 1613- 
14 among the Nipissings, returning down the 
Ottawa the next May, and met Samuel De 
Champlain at Hochelaga, he having brought 
back with him the Indian. Pierre maintained 
he had been well treated in France, and 
Stephen Brule loudly praised the Nipissings 
for the treatment he had received. Brule re 
V 
