Jacques Cartier

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The Iroquois of Hochelaga

Hail! You awesome human. We meet and we are joyous. It is with gladness that we greet the newcomers to our great land. Come, eat, fill your bellies from our larder, you will not starve among us. We feed you, we accept you, friend, speak with us. We will teach you and help you, friend, come to our village, for conversation and peace among us.

You, oh lofty European, with your fine boat, your interesting garment, your unusual style. How intriguing that you should come here to meet us. Tell us about yourselves, your passage, your ways, your reason for being here.

And so, the dialogue occurs. A conversation on the island of Montreal, between the explore Jacques Cartier and the Iroquois of Hochelaga.

The kindness of the  people, the curiosity, goodwill, companionship and generosity all marked in the captains log.  A fine people of bravery and fellowship, standing at the gateway to the interior of Canada.  A brave new land.  A people of skills and craftsmanship who built a fortress of wood with a village of longhouses inside it.  A people who farmed the land, planted crops, fished in the waters of the St. Lawrence River.  A people with some invention, with tools and self sufficiency, that were able to rely on their wits and toil for their survival.

https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/french-canada/the-mystery-village

These are the  people who are lost to us, only six years had passed and they are gone.  Where did you vanish to, you kind and courageous people?  Where did you go, when we needed your stories?  Your kinship is important to us, yet you vanish into history.  A people of fame, marked in the year 1535 and gone 6 years later in 1541.  Man the builder.  A fortress of wood, with longhouses inside it.  A village to protect the 1500 occupants.  The historical significance of this site is immense, since the builder has tools and a method of construction which was unique to them.  They also had social order which helped them to live congenially in such a confined space.  But where did you go,  oh fine human?  A human of intellect and high aptitudes, of compassion and caring, vanishing into the unknown in such a few short years.  

The mystery of Hochelaga still haunts us, as we excavate Montreal.  Although the people vanished, the message survived.  Come, friend, speak with us.  The exploration of Canada and later the fur trade.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

February 1, 2020

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Jacques Cartier

Hail Brave Hearts

Still to adventure, still to explore, still to choose the path to discovery. Plan and chart a path, wander and investigate. Choose to follow the dreams of new life. The traveler follows the stars to a new world. Unbelievable! To find a new nation rising up out of the ocean. Forests and land, new people and a new world. The space travelers of the 1500’s.

France was determined to be first. Find the riches, find the gold, find the new waterway to the orient. Make us rich, make us bold, let us gloat at our prosperity. Give me riches, give me wine, give me life and leisure. Give me money, give me wealth, give me land, give me power, give me the great gift of jealousy. I am fine, I am regal, I am cultured, I am powerful. Support my dream, support my quest, make me the champion ruler of the west. Pave a pathway from East to West. Give me the Orient, fulfill my request.

Depart again, on a voyage of discovery. Take these vessels, take these men, find the route before you return again. These are your orders, do your part, I am the ruler, the wise one, the mighty. Do your duty, find the way, give me what I want, of course, I’ll pay. I am smug, I am strong, I am the mightiest. Do your duty. I am never wrong.

So again, Jacques Cartier sets sai for Canada and for the conquest of the new land. The instructions are simple. Give us a colony, give us peace, find the passage to Asia.

Jacques Cartier 1534-1542

The hardworking set sail. The earnest keep striving. The determined keep focused. Yes, the oceans will be crossed, the sea will roll us from one continent to another, the stormy battles with nature will be won. Fear will subside, dismay will vanish, the distraught will be quieted and apprehension will soon leave. Relief will follow with the sight of land.

A colony is imperative, since that’s what our lives are. Cut from the cloth of a settlers life. Give me strength, give me courage, give me shelter, food and clothing. I am the castaway, looking for safety, with instructions so simple, build a home and survive. Survive in the spring, when our rations are plentiful and build your straw houses for shelter and warmth. Survive in summer when the lands gives us plenty, the harsh work of building a colony for all of us. Survive in the autumn when the fruit is ripe and when gathering the crop for storage is a necessity. Survive in the winter when the wind is cold and howling and when the fire burns through the fuel that was so carefully stored. Survive when it’s freezing and the snow piles high, but the instructions were so simple; build a home and survive.

Quarreling and adversary fills the air. What about our lives? This is not a life, this is despair! So with great sadness and futility, the plan is abandoned. Cast aside your hopes, your dream, your plans, this adventure in living is by far too grand. Home to France, back to civilization. Back to the home and the hearth that we know. Back to France where our hearts lie dearly. Forget this foolish scheme of misery. The idea of a colony in Canada is now squashed until the next century.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

December 21, 2019

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Hochelaga

Hail Bravehearts

It’s a fabulous notion, to start anew, with fresh ideas, community, land and skills. Exciting and enticing, to feel the fresh air, to feel freedom, adventure to call this land your home. The tingling sensation of anticipation and joy. At last, a home. It’s a long way to voyage, to come to Canada, to serve in the conquest of a voyage so rare. To build it, so live it, the adventure of the century, to dwell in the new colony, to be history.

Now venture along the St. Lawrence, with it’s turbulent waters. See the sweet little town called Quebec, but travel, just a little bit further. Another 255 kilometers to the new city of Montreal. A fabulous place, built with the dedication of the colonialist. A fine mind set on conquering a new frontier. Another test of strength and courage, but also negotiation, acceptance and peace. A chance for a new home, a new life, but sharing. To share the land with strangers who will be your neighbors, who will, in their own way, help to make the nation and the colony survive. An unusual friendship, the European and the aboriginal, but so it will be, in the commerce of trade and in the harmony of the land. Peace be with us.

Mystery of the missing village of Hochelaga persists

From the voyages of Jacques Cartier, to the new settlers of the land, the joy of adventure is with us.

Jacques Cartier. A voyage of discovery in Canada, the search for a new land. Fabulous! To travel so far, to strive so diligently, to be courageous and educated is such fine arts as navigation, weather, geography, negotiation and more. It’s the skills of human intelligence that wins this fine race across the Atlantic Ocean.

A daring adventure filled with the unknown. A curiosity that must be resolved, the question of what’s out there? Bring back gold, riches and spices. Find a way to the orient! Adventure, oh braves ones, out to the sea, into the winter and to the dangers that it brings. Rest in the camp, die in the land, but bring back gold, riches and spices. Find the path to Asia! Be fantastic, be noble, be brave, be successful be obedient. Bring back gold!

It’s a brave new world, filled with brave new people who must be met and communicated with. It is with hard work and toil, that this endevour pays off so well. The people are kind. Joy be with us! Good luck and good fortune have found the explorers as they land on these shores among strangers who are congenial, or intended to be.

October 2, 1535 was a grand day, for a great nation. The expedition lands in Hochelaga an Iroquois village which will become part of the modern city of Montreal. Share the joy, share the harvest, share the land, meet the people, be our friends. Come, Jacques Cartier, eat with us, talk to us. Don’t be strangers. But the discourse lasted only a few hours before the Europeans returned to the camp upstream, after naming the hill behind Hochelaga, Mont Royal.

Foiled again! The wintry blasts of icy cold are too much of a burden to bear. By more good fortune, the camping party is saved from scurvy, which did claim 25 lives during the winter.

Come, oh fine humans, drink the Iroquois tea of white pine needles, to cure your scurvy and to save your lives. Drink to your good health, literally.

When spring finally came, in the merry month of May, the beleagured group of adventurers return to France with positive reports of a river to the west. The pathway to Asia, to riches, spices and gold, lay through the continent, in the land called Canada.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

December 17, 2019

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Again, the European

Good day, almighty human

 

We sing our songs of praises to the great works of the mighty human.  Strong and courageous, he leads us in battle.  Fight the fight of victory and win the battle, be the unbeatable foe.  His words echo in our minds, our hearts follow the courageous leader, and our souls sing the destiny that the champion creates.  

Hail!  Calls out the almighty human and we respond. Hail!  Yes, we will follow, the awesome deeds to victory, the battle must be won.

To build a nation from the great wild and to turn the country into a unified force of goodwill and compassion, each to one another.  An awesome scheme, a grand and glorious notion, a courageous adventure.  From our roots as kindred spirits, surviving and thriving in the great north, we carve our niche in the world and plan and prepare for the great life.  A life  of living the great adventure. The dreams of brilliant forefathers who planned and prepared.  Wealth, riches, the fabulous new world.  The glorious ambition and awesome challenge, to build a nation from the endless stretches of wooded land and rugged landscape.  To carve a niche on the planet and to call that negotiation a nation.  All lands under one contract, all peoples under one law, to live and to die, for the energy and enthusiasm of the quest to build a country.

The west stretched onward in a glorious and encouraging land.  The mighty forests, the endless prairie, the majestic mountains and the far off ocean.  A dream of grandeur, to unite the nation. The negotiated settlements of trading posts, furs for blankets, ammunition, food and craft.  The people prepared for a land of settlement, believing in the sound judgment of their leaders and the peace and prosperity that their brilliance would bring them.  They arrived in anticipation of a new life, a new world, and a new venture.  Farmers, merchants, fur traders.  The energy of freedom filled their bodies, their minds, their hearts and their souls.

“Come!”  called the land. ” Meet my people!”  and the courageous new comer came forth to meet the challenge and be victorious.

It had been 500 years since the Vikings had abandoned the settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows and again the European came to the call of adventure and to establish himself in the new world.  A fort, a home, a colony.  The French from France now became the new masters of the brave new world.  Again the call for settlement came from the land north of the 49th parallel.  Colonize.

http://www.canadiana.ca/citm/themes/pioneers/pioneers2_e.html

Although the British, Spanish and Portuguese were fishing the oceans off the Newfoundland shore, it was the French who decided to rise to the challenge and to meet the task of colonization.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/qc/cartierbrebeuf/index.aspx  Parks Canada.  Wintering place of Jacques Cartier.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

July 20, 2014

The Fur Trade
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The Fur Trade

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and...

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and the later British trade at York Factory. The shading shows Rupert’s Land (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh the wonder of it all.  The endless beauty, the landscape the forest, the smell, the  sound, the quiet, the glory!  The freedom of adventure, the challenge of skills, the might of our strength to be pitted only against ourselves with the adversary being the landscape.  Oh the land!  The call of the great wild.  To hear the sound of the soul searching cry.  Come, mankind, venture forth oh diligent and aspiring soul.  For the land becons the voyageur and it calls them by name.

Almighty man, it whispers, come harvest my treasure.

From all walks of life the hero responds.  The lure of the magic entices.  The earth song sings and the sirens of the great north call to the almighty human.  Walk my soil, forge my rivers, the catch lies just beyond.

Feel your strength as the paddle pushes through the water.  Stroke after stroke of the rhythmic beat.  The voyageur, with canoes laden with supplies, pushes onward to a destiny of treasure.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzFHfS1BWm0

Fur.

The cry of the century and the wealth of the nation.  Fur!

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/fur-trade

The  boastful preoccupation of a wealthy nation, the fur trade entices the entrepreneur.  Come, almighty human, into the land of plenty.  The trade in furs will make you rich and there is plenty.

Explore the great rivers in your birch bark canoes, in your voyageur canoes.  The nation opens its waterways to you and presents the thousands of kilometers of river systems throughout the land.

The vast watershed of lower Canada is accomplished.  Onward we push to the limitless north.  The Hudson Bay and the rivers beyond.  Up  to the forts of York Factory, where the trade in furs grows to coin, bullion, gold!  The land is rich in harvested fur.  The champions of navigation press onward through the river systems, the tributaries, the lakes, the voyage north to trade.  The fur trade opens the nation to commerce, entrepreneurialism, wealth, fashion, merchants, the gold of the country.

From province to province, to province the voyageur paddles on.  Prosperity, trade, union, negotiation all for the almighty man, be he the king of a great nation, the sovereign of a tribe, the Coureur de Bois.  All are connected to the forest, the rivers the place of prosperity.  Fur!  The cry of the aristocrat becons and the sovereign lord of the forest responds.

Hail, almighty human, the sword and the musket never raised against yea.  The trade of commerce is the negotiation of the nation.  Blend, you great human, you moral man.   The fur trade and the conquest of the river systems opens the world to the intelligent human.  Yes, the mortal strength of one man cannot accomplish feats so daring, but the might, the privilege, the brilliant mind, knows no other recourse than to win.  Win the trust of the people, win the support for the venture in trade and in human harmony we bond and become.

Hail, almighty human.  A collection of huts is a settlement, a sanctuary.  Home!  The country is called Kanata, that is HOME.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 14,2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

The St Lawrence River
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The St Lawrence River

English: Map of Jacques Cartier's second voyag...

English: Map of Jacques Cartier’s second voyage to North America in 1535-6. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Good Day!  You Awesome Human.

As we explore our great country through Rivers to Oceans week, we celebrate the daring, the courage, the monumental feats of bravery.  The country was explored and opened by brave hearts.

The exploration by Jacques Cartier in 1534 to 1542 was the first European exploration of the St. Lawrence River.

The oceans brought the European to the already well inhabited land.  The country had been populated for thousands of years already, by migrants who crossed the northern land mass and settled in  the continent.

The Europeans crossed the oceans in a daring adventure of exploration, to discover what lies beyond the horizon and to unite worlds separated by water, tides, waves, weather, distance and fortitude.

Only your dreams will push you on, only your nightmares will stop you!

The bold adventurers came, onward, onward, into the straits of the St. Lawrence and pushed their crafts farther into the heart of the nation.  The contact was made, the discovery excels.  A new people, a new world, new trade, new prosperity.   The St. Lawrence River was the channel of discovery for these fortunate mariners.  It brought them fame, fortune, trade and the exhilarating right of conquest.  It secured their mission, proved their aptitude, yes, almighty human, the doors to the nation opened and the country let them in.

The mighty St. Lawrence River was the pathway to prosperity, negotiation, settlement and pride.  Oh, you worthy stalwart, to set sail on that day, one day, for the quest of your lives, for the rest of your lives.  To be the history, the making of a great nation.  To be the almighty man.

That one awesome, inspired day, became the might and greatness of several great nations.  Jacques Cartier for France visited a country named for a collection of huts.  Kanata!  And so it was born.  Born from the passage of a great river, born from the passage of a great ocean.  Born from brilliant aptitudes of navigation, sailing, shipbuilding, negotiation, leadership, compassion and daring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_cartier

The bold adventurer seeks the challenge and the brilliant aptitudes achieves it.

The consequential negotiation brought fantastic prosperity to France.  The oceans yielded a seemingly unlimited harvest of fresh fish for the hungry. Food in abundance, led early settlers to a new land, a new life of promise.  The negotiation was successful, colonization was possible.  The impossible dream would be attempted.

For France the colony meant new lands, new life, new wealth.  The daring challenge was met, the conquest told.  Oh you fortuitous stalwarts, climb aboard.  Climb aboard for the adventure of you life.  There’s no looking back.  And so they did.   Pioneers who could settle an unknown nation, with unknown plants and soil.  To cut a tract of land for farming, build houses, invent.   To set the course of history.  To be the indomitable human.

http://suite101.com/article/jacques-cartier-and-charlesbourgroyal-a173492

The first colony was on the banks of the mighty St. Lawrence River.  It didn’t last, but the failure didn’t stop  them.  Another attempt would be made.

Rivers to Oceans.  This week is for us. This is our cultural heritage.  From rivers and oceans our nation was born.

Hail, almighty human.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 12, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes