Samuel de Champlain visits the Anishinabe Aki (1613-2013)

In 2013 we mark the visit or land survery and exploration 400 years ago of Samuel de Champlain who was the French explorer, surveyor and founder of Quebec City. With the help of the First Nation Anishinabe (Algonquin) sailed down with 3 companions from Quebec City, then nothing more than a few buildings on the shore of the Saint-Laurent housing a total population of 30 men.

Samuel de Champlain, explorer, founder of Quebec City 1608 and of New France



He travelled up the Outaouais River known then as Kichi Zibi. If you look at the map of the time you will note that by leaving Quebec, Champlain was going West into unknown and potentially dangerous territory, there is no Montreal and no Ottawa as we know it today, no other European settlements, the Saint-Laurent river was patrolled by War Parties of Iroquois and Algonquin.

The First Nation near Quebec are the Montagnais-Huron,  then south of the Island of Montreal is Iroquois country and then up the Kichi Zibi he would enter into Anishinabe Aki (Algonquin) lands. The Algonquin are closely related to the Montagnais-Huron and their deadly enemy was the Iroquois Confederation. The reason why Champlain made a long detour up the Outaouais river in trying to reach the Great Lakes was because of the war between the Iroquois and the Algonquin, Montagnais-Huron which had been on-going since 1550. His Native guides pointed out the way on this trip to avoid any encounter with the Iroquois. The Algonquin were also protecting their trade with the French which gave them access to metal axes, metal pots for cooking and firearms which were a powerful weapon their enemy did not have.  All huge improvements on their quality of life.

Upon arrival in the Ottawa Valley, Champlain will give a French name the great Asticou Falls which he translated into Chaudières.  He will write that the thundering noise of the waterfalls was so great that you could hear them 2 km away. As for the Rideau water falls, he will ignore them and the naming will come some 60 years later. Champlain also did not think much of the Ottawa valley or the Anishinabe lands. He uses many negative words in his journal to describe the region, he wrote that God may have planted numerous wild strawberry, raspberry and blueberry plants in the region as compensation for the poverty of the place.

Asticou or Chaudière Falls in 1860.

After passing the numerous rapids of the Kichi Zibi in front of what is today Parliament Hill and the Chaudière (Asticou) waterfalls he will meet with Chief Tessouat at Allumettes Island, he will engage him into diplomatic negotiations and try to obtain permission to go further up the river. However Tessouat will refuse to grant him this permission fearing lost of exclusive trade routes and interference by the French with the Nipissing people from whom the Algonquin collected a tax. Nicholas de Vignau who was Champlain's translator and who had travelled previously or so he claimed up the Outaouais river made several boastful claims. The first was that it was possible to nagivate without portage up the river. Luckily Champlain listened to his Algonquin guides who explained that the rapids were terrifying and un-passable, something Champlain quickly understood when he saw them. Vignau had also spoken of a Northern Sea further ahead, probably was is called today James Bay, on this point Vignau was called a liar by Chief Tessouat, who said if he saw the great Northern Sea it was in his dreams. Champlain trying to preserve his good and important relations with the Algonquin rebuked him publicly and angrily, he then abandoned Vignau in the forest near the Island of Montreal, Vignau was never heard of again and it is not known what happened to him but it is easy to imagine that his fate was grim.

Of the legacy of the trip made by Champlain in the Anishinabe Aki (Ottawa valley) little remains, 1613 was not a good year for him. The only lasting mark are the maps and the tracing of the Kichi Zibi (Outaouais) river. However this new water way will be a highway for all fur traders in future and then much later for the lumber industry.

If the Europeans saw this excursion into Anishinabe Aki as a great endeavour full of wonderful discovery and daring. For the Natives this anniversary is not one to be remembered fondly, this was the beginning of a very sad and sorry period which would see their culture destroyed and pushed aside.

The Gatineau National Park across from Ottawa

Many decades ago a French urban planner suggested to the Federal Government of Canada in his report on the National Capital that a string of great parks be created around the Capital. One such park is the Gatineau Park. Just a few minutes away from Ottawa on the Quebec side of the Outaouais river, the park entrance is inside the City of Gatineau and the parkway takes you deep into the mountains. There are lots of lakes and trails taking you inside the forest, however stay on the trail, you do not want to get lost in the woods, the forest is thick, there are lots of bogs, waterfalls, cliffs and other hazards.

There are also several official residences in the Gatineau Park, one is Meech Lake which is the official summer residence of the Prime Minister, formerly owned by a Lumber Baron and the other is Kingsmere, the former Estate of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Upon his death he donated this large estate to the people of Canada. The Estate like the man is eccentric, Uncle Rex as he was known to his friends started going up to the Gatineau and developed his Estate over 50 years until his death July 22, 1950, it was his hobby, his fantasy.

The Farm, one of the three houses on the Estate, was an old farm house he bought, renovated and enlarged into a beautiful house, today it is the Official Residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons and closed to the public. I remember maybe 30 years ago it was still open on certain days and you could see the bedroom where Mackenzie King died with all the original furniture. The Speaker then was married and had little kids, the children were afraid to sleep in that bed, it had a plaque which said that this is where the Prime Minister had died. His wife had the plaque removed which caused a great deal of comment. She was also the one who use to push the emergency security buzzer to see how quickly the RCMP, who provided security, would take to answer the call, they were not amused.
The other house on the lake is Kingswood a simple cottage which is undergoing renovation at this time to be completed by June 2013. The three houses are over 100 years old.

The one best known to the public is Moorside which houses the tea salon and small restaurant with formal gardens. I noticed that the old stone bird bath in front of the house is gone. The ruins have been spruced up and look better than ever. Those are the famous ruins from buildings demolished in Ottawa a long time ago, with architectural features the Prime Minister liked, so he purchased these bits of stone and masonry, had them moved up to his Estate and reassembled in a fantasy style garden.  To this day, people think that Uncle Rex was an eccentric. In his days there were also other features like stone animals but those have been removed a long time ago.

I am currently reading his biography entitled "King" by Allan Levine, the author goes over all the usual stories about Mackenzie King, using the diaries and journals left by Uncle Rex, we have close to 2 million pages of detailed information, Uncle Rex kept up his diaries over his entire adult life from age 18, a real treasure trove.

He was a deeply religious man, raised a Presbyterian, had puritanical ideas, believed firmly that the Hand of the All Mighty was guiding him in all things, but all that did not prevent him from having several mistresses. He explains in great details in his journal that he is looking for the perfect woman, who would be like his mother, virtuous, pious and kind, the embodiment of all feminine qualities. A very 19th century picture, he never found that woman despite having several lady friends often the wives of prominent men in Ottawa. One was the wife of the Pastor of St-Andrew Presbyterian Church on Wellington Street.

The book also tells us that he was deeply involved in Spiritualism and though his mother died in 1917, throughout his life he will travel everywhere with no less than 5 pictures of his mother. In his study at Laurier House in Ottawa, there is one such picture described by one of his lady friends as "that horror". He also spoke or communicated with his dead dog Pat and he also spoke to Pat 2 and Pat 3 who will outlive his master. Ministers were appointed to his Cabinet based often on doodles they would make on pieces of paper. Mackenzie King studied them to determine if any significance or meaning could be given to them.  Thanks to his journal we have a complete record of his thoughts and emotions. On the other hand he was a far thinking man and we can thank him for much of the labour code reforms in Canada and for starting much of the social programs we have today. Mackenzie King believed deeply that his duty as a politician was to help his fellow man. He worked for Rockefeller and certainly tried to change the anti-labour attitude of most business owners at the beginning of the XXth century. We are lucky that William Lyon Mackenzie King deeded his property to the Nation, a magnificent gift.

The fantasy ruins

To go back to my ride up into the Gatineau Park, I was almost alone on the road, only saw 2 other cars and about a dozen cyclists, those are the hard core cyclists, the climb is difficult and steep. There were two men at the Huron Lookout and both must have been in their sixties with legs of steel. We are very lucky in the National Capital Region to be able to enjoy this park.

View at Huron lookout, looking south towards Ottawa in the distance to the left

Huron Lookout is so named because in the period between 1604 and 1613 several French explorer came to the area among them Etienne Brulé and Samuel de Champlain. The Huron lived further north down the Outaouais river. The area of the Gatineau Park is Algonquin land cousins of the Mohawks of the Iroquois Confederacy.