Voyage of The Paper Canoe
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N. H. Bishop >> Voyage of The Paper Canoe
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As the ship nears the first great port of the
St. Lawrence River, the large and well
cultivated island of Orleans is passed, and the bold
fortifications of Quebec, high up on the face of
Point Diamond, and flanked by the houses of the
French city, break upon the vision of the mariner.
To the right, and below the city, which
Champlain founded, and in which his unknown
ashes repose, are the beautiful Falls of
Montmorency, gleaming in all the whiteness of their
falling waters and mists, like the bridal veil of a
giantess. The vessel has safely made her
passage, and now comes to anchor in the Basin of
Quebec. The sails are furled, and the heart of
the sailor is merry, for the many dangers which
beset the ship while approaching and entering
the great water-way of the continent are now
over.
CHAPTER II. FROM QUEBEC TO SOREL
THE WATER-WAY INTO THE CONTINENT. -- THE WESTERN AND
THE SOUTHERN ROUTE TO THE GULF OF MEXICO. -- THE MAYETA.
-- COMMENCEMENT OF THE VOYAGE. -- ASCENT OF THE RIVER
ST. LAWRENCE. -- LAKE OF ST. PETER. -- ACADIAN TOWN OF
SOREL
The canoe traveller can ascend the St.
Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, avoiding the
rapids and shoals by making use of seven canals
of a total length of forty-seven miles. He may
then skirt the shores of Lake Ontario, and enter
Lake Erie by the canal which passes around the
celebrated Falls of Niagara. From the last great
inland sea he can visit lakes Huron, Michigan,
and, with the assistance of a short canal, the
grandest of all, Superior. When he has reached
the town of Duluth, at the southwestern end of
Superior, which is the terminus of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, our traveller will have paddled
(following the contours of the land) over two
thousand miles from salt water into the
American continent without having been compelled to
make a portage with his little craft. Let him
now make his first portage westward, over the
road one hundred and fifteen miles from
Duluth to the crossing of the Mississippi River at
Brainerd, and launch his boat on the Father of
Waters, which he may descend with but few
interruptions to below the Falls of St. Anthony,
at Minneapolis; or, if he will take his boat by
rail from Duluth, one hundred and fifty-five miles,
to St. Paul, he can launch his canoe, and follow
the steamboat to the Gulf of Mexico. This is
the longest, and may be called the canoeist's
western route to the great Southern Sea. In
St. Louis County, Minnesota, the water from
"Seven Beaver Lakes" flows south-southwest,
and joins the Flood-Wood River; there taking
an easterly course towards Duluth, it empties
into Lake Superior. This is the St. Louis River,
the first tributary of the mighty St. Lawrence
system. From the head waters of the St. Louis
to the mouth of the St. Lawrence at Bic Islands,
where it enters the great estuary, the length of
this great water system, including the great
Lakes, is about two thousand miles. The area thus
drained by the St. Lawrence River is nearly six
millions of square miles. The largest craft can
ascend it to Quebec, and smaller ones to
Montreal; above which city, navigation being
impeded by rapids, the seven canals before
mentioned have been constructed that vessels may
avoid this danger while voyaging to Lake Ontario.
The southern and shorter coast route to the
gulf leaves the great river at the Acadian town
of Sorel, where the quiet Richelieu flows into
the St. Lawrence River. Of the two long routes
offered me I selected the southern, leaving the
other to be traversed at some future time. To
follow the contours of rivers, bays, and sounds,
a voyage of at least twenty-five hundred miles
was before me. It was my intention to explore
the connecting watercourses southward, without
making a single portage, as far as Cape
Henlopen, a sandy headland at the entrance of
Delaware Bay; there, by making short portages from
one watercourse to another, to navigate along
the interior of the Atlantic coast to the St. Mary's
River, which is a dividing line between Georgia
and Florida. From the Atlantic coast of
southern Georgia, I proposed to cross the peninsula
of Florida by way of the St. Mary's River, to
Okefenokee Swamp; thence, by portage, to the
Suwanee River, and by descending that stream
(the boundary line of a geographical division --
eastern and middle Florida), to reach the coast
of the Gulf of Mexico, which was to be the
terminal point of my canoe journey. Charts, maps
and sea-faring men had informed me that about
twenty-three hundred miles of the trip could be
made upon land-locked waters, but about two
hundred miles of voyaging must be done upon
the open Atlantic Ocean.
As I now write, I smilingly remember how
erroneous were my advisers; for, while
prosecuting my voyage, I was but once upon the open
sea and then through mistake and for only a
few minutes. Had I then known that I could
have followed the whole route in a small boat
upon strictly interior waters, I should have
paddled from the Basin of Quebec in the light
paper canoe which I afterwards adopted at Troy,
and which carried me alone in safety two
thousand miles to the warm regions of the Gulf of
Mexico. The counsels of old seamen had
influenced me to adopt a large wooden clinker-built,
decked canoe, eighteen feet long, forty-five inches
beam, and twenty-four inches depth of hold,
which weighed, with oars, rudder, mast and sail,
above three hundred pounds. The Mayeta was
built by an excellent workman, Mr. J. S.
Lamson, at Bordentown, New Jersey. The boat was
sharp at each end, and the lines from amidships
to stem, and from amidships to stempost, were
alike. She possessed that essential characteristic
of seaworthiness, abundant sheer. The deck was
pierced for a cockpit in the centre, which was
six feet long and surrounded by a high combing
to keep out water. The builder had done his
best to make the Mayeta serve for rowing and
sailing -- a most difficult combination, and one
not usually successful.
On the morning of July 4, 1874, I entered
the Basin of Quebec with my wooden canoe
and my waterman, one David Bodfish, a
"shoreman" of New Jersey. After weeks of
preparation and weary travel by rail and by water, we
had steamed up the Gulf and the River of St.
Lawrence to this our most northern point of
departure. We viewed the frowning heights
upon which was perched the city of Quebec
with unalloyed pleasure, and eagerly scrambled
up the high banks to see the interesting old city.
The tide, which rises at the city piers eighteen
feet in the spring, during the neaps reaches only
thirteen feet. Late in the afternoon the
incoming tide promised to assist us in ascending the
river, the downward current of which runs with
torrent-like velocity, and with a depth abreast
the city of from sixteen to twenty fathoms.
Against this current powerful steamers run one
hundred and eighty miles up the river to
Montreal in eighteen hours, and descend in fourteen
hours, including two hours' stoppages at Sorel
and Three Rivers. At six o'clock P. M. we
pushed off into the river, which is about
two-thirds of a mile wide at this point, and
commenced our voyage; but fierce gusts of wind
arose and drove us to the shelter of Mr.
Hamilton's lumber-yard on the opposite shore, where
we passed the night, sleeping comfortably upon
cushions which we spread on the narrow floor
of the boat. Sunday was to be spent in camp;
but when dawn appeared we were not allowed
build a fire on the lumber pier, and were
forced to ascend the St. Lawrence in quest of a
retired spot above the landing of St. Croix, on
the right bank of the river. The tide had been
a high one when we beached our boat at the foot
of a bluff. Two hours later the receding tide
left us a quarter of a mile from the current.
The river was fully two miles wide at this point,
and so powerful was its current that steamers
anchored in it were obliged to keep their wheels
slowly revolving to ease the strain on their
anchors. Early on Monday morning we beheld
with consternation that the tide did not reach
our boat, and by dint of hard labor we
constructed a railroad from a neighboring fence,
and moved the Mayeta on rollers upon it over
the mud and the projecting reef of rocks some
five hundred feet to the water, then embarking,
rowed close along the shore to avoid the current.
A deep fog settled down upon us, and we were
driven to camp again on the left bank, where a
cataract tumbled over the rocks fifty or more
feet. Tuesday was a sunny day, but the usual
head wind greeted us. The water would rise
along-shore on the flood three hours before the
downward current was checked in the channel
of the river. We could not place any
dependence in the regularity of the tides, as strong
winds and freshets in the tributaries influence
them. Earlier in the season, as a writer
remarks, "until the upland waters have all run
down, and the great rivers have discharged the
freshets caused by thawing of the snows in the
spring of the year, this current, in spite of tides,
will always run down." To the uninitiated the
spectacle is a curious one, of the flood tide rising
and swelling the waters of a great river some
eight to ten feet, while the current at the surface
is rapidly descending the course of the stream.
Finding that the wind usually rose and fell
with the sun, we now made it a rule to anchor
our boat during most of the day and pull against
the current at night. The moon and the bright
auroral lights made this task an agreeable one.
Then, too, we had Coggia's comet speeding
through the northern heavens, awakening many
an odd conjecture in the mind of my old salt.
In this high latitude day dawned before three
o'clock, and the twilight lingered so long that
we could read the fine print of a newspaper
without effort at a quarter to nine o'clock P. M.
The lofty shores that surrounded us at Quebec
gradually decreased in elevation, and the tides
affected the river less and less as we approached
Three Rivers, where they seemed to cease
altogether. We reached the great lumber station
of Three Rivers, which is located on the left
bank of the St. Lawrence, on Friday evening,
and moved our canoe into quiet waters near the
entrance of Lake of St. Peter. Rain squalls
kept us close under our hatch-cloth till eleven
o'clock A. M. on Saturday, when, the wind being
fair, we determined to make an attempt to reach
Sorel, which would afford us a pleasant
camping-ground for Sunday.
Lake of St. Peter is a shoal sheet of water
twenty-two miles long and nearly eight miles
wide, a bad place to cross in a small boat in
windy weather. We set our sail and sped
merrily on, but the tempest pressed us sorely,
compelling us to take in our sail and scud under
bare poles until one o'clock, when we
double-reefed and set the sail. We now flew over the
short and swashy seas as blast after blast struck
our little craft. At three o'clock the wind
slackened, permitting us to shake out our reefs and
crowd on all sail. A labyrinth of islands closed
the lake at its western end, and we looked with
anxiety to find among them an opening through
which we might pass into the river St.
Lawrence again. At five o'clock the wind veered
to the north, with squalls increasing in intensity.
We steered for a low, grassy island, which
seemed to separate us from the river. The wind
was not free enough to permit us to weather it,
so we decided to beach the boat and escape the
furious tempest. But when we struck the marshy
island we kept moving on through the rushes
that covered it, and fairly sailed over its
submerged soil into the broad water on the other
side. Bodfish earnestly advised the propriety of
anchoring here for the night, saying, "It is too
rough to go on;" but the temptation held out
by the proximity to Sorel determined me to
take the risk and drive on. Again we bounded
out upon rough water, with the screeching
tempest upon us. David took the tiller, while I sat
upon the weather-rail to steady the boat. The
Mayeta was now to be put to a severe test; she
was to cross seas that could easily trip a boat of
her size; but the wooden canoe was worthy of
her builder, and flew like an affrighted bird over
the foaming waves across the broad water, to
the shelter of a wooded, half submerged island,
out of which rose, on piles, a little light-house.
Under this lee we crept along in safety. The
sail was furled, never to be used in storm again.
The wind went down with the sinking sun, and
a delightful calm favored us for our row up the
narrowing river, eight miles to the place of
destination.
Soon after nine o'clock we came upon the
Acadian town, Sorel, with its bright lights
cheerily flashing out upon us as we rowed past its
river front. The prow of our canoe was now
pointed southward toward the goal of our
ambition, the great Mexican Gulf; and we were about
to ascend that historic stream, the lovely
Richelieu, upon whose gentle current, two hundred
and sixty-six years before, Champlain had
ascended to the noble lake which bears his name,
and up which the missionary Jogues had been
carried an unwilling captive to bondage and to
torture.
We ascended the Richelieu, threading our
way among steam-tugs, canal-boats, and rafts,
to a fringe of rushes growing out of a shallow
flat on the left bank of the river, just above
the town. There, firmly staking the Mayeta
upon her soft bed of mud, secure from danger,
we enjoyed a peaceful rest through the calm
night which followed; and thus ended the rough
passage of one week's duration -- from Quebec
to Sorel.
CHAPTER III. FROM THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER TO TICONDEROGA, LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
THE RICHELIEU RIVER. -- ACADIAN SCENES. - ST. OURS.-- ST.
ANTOINE. -- ST. MARKS. -- BELCEIL. -- CHAMELY CANAL. -- ST.
JOHNS. -- LAKE CHAMPLAIN. THE GREAT SHIP-CANAL. --
DAVID BODFISH 'S CAMP. -- THE ADIRONDACK SURVEY. -- A
CANVAS BOAT. -- DIMENSIONS OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. -- PORT
KENT. -- AUSABLE CHASM. -- ARRIVAL AT TICONDEROGA.
Quebec was founded by Champlain, July 3,
1680. During his first warlike expedition
into the land of the Iroquois the following year,
escorted by Algonquin and Montagnais Indian
allies, he ascended a river to which was
afterwards given the name of Cardinal Richelieu,
prime minister of Louis XIII. of France. This
stream, which is about eighty miles long,
connects the lake (which Champlain discovered
and named after himself) with the St. Lawrence
River at a point one hundred and forty miles
above Quebec, and forty miles below Montreal.
The waters of lakes George and Champlain
flow northward, through the Richelieu River
into the St. Lawrence. The former stream flows
through a cultivated country, and upon its banks,
after leaving Sorel, are situate the little towns
of St. Ours, St. Rock, St. Denis, St. Antoine, St.
Marks, Beloeil, Chambly, and St. Johns. Small
steamers, tug-boats, and rafts pass from the St.
Lawrence to Lake Champlain (which lies almost
wholly within the United States), following the
Richelieu to Chambly, where it is necessary, to
avoid rapids and shoals, to take the canal that
follows the river's bank twelve miles to St. Johns,
where the Canadian custom-house is located.
Sorel is called William Henry by the Anglo-Saxon
Canadians. The paper published in this
town of seven thousand inhabitants is La
Gazette de Sorel. The river which flows past the
town is called, without authority, by some
geographers, Sorel River, and by others St. Johns,
because the town nearest its source is St. Johns,
and another town at its mouth is Sorel. There
are about one hundred English-speaking families
in Sorel. The American Waterhouse Machinery
supplies the town with water pumped from the
river at a cost of one ton of coal per day. At
ten o'clock on Monday morning we resumed
our journey up the Richelieu, the current of
which was nothing compared with that of the
great river we had left. The average width of
the stream was about a quarter of a mile, and the
grassy shores were made picturesque by groves
of trees and quaintly constructed farm-houses.
It was a rich, pastoral land, abounding in fine
herds of cattle. The country reminded me of
the Acadian region of Grand Pre, which I had
visited during the earlier part of the season.
Here, as there, were delightful pastoral scenes
and rich verdure; but here we still had the
Acadian peasants, while in the land of beautiful
Evangeline no longer were they to be found,
The New Englander now holds the titles to
those deserted old farms of the scattered
colonists. Our rowing was frequently interrupted
by heavy showers, which drove us under our
hatch-cloth for protection. The same large,
two-steepled stone churches, with their
unpainted tin roofs glistening like silver in the sunlight,
marked out here, as on the high banks of the
St. Lawrence River, the site of a village.
Twelve miles of rowing brought us to St. Ours,
where we rested for the night, after wandering
through its shaded and quaint streets. The
village boys and girls came down to see us off the
next morning, waving their kerchiefs, and
shouting "Bon voyage!" Two miles above the town
we encountered a dam three feet high, which
deepened the water on a shoal above it. We
passed through a single lock in company with
rafts of pine logs which were on the way to New
York, to be used for spars. A lockage fee of
twenty-five cents for our boat the lock-master
told us would be collected at Chambly Basin.
It was a pull of nearly six miles to St. Denis,
where the same scene of comfort and plenty
prevailed. Women were washing clothes in large
iron pots at the river's edge, and the hum of the
spinning-wheels issued from the doorways of
the farm-houses. Beehives in the well-stocked
gardens were filled with honey, and the
strawthatched barns had their doors thrown wide
open, as though waiting to receive the harvest.
At intervals along the highway, over the grassy
hills, tall, white wooden crosses were erected;
for this people, like the Acadians of old, are very
religious. Down the current floated "pin-flats,"
a curious scow-like boat, which carries a square
sail, and makes good time only when running
before the wind. St. Antoine and St. Marks
were passed, and the isolated peak of St. Hilaire
loomed up grandly twelve hundred feet on the
right bank of the Richelieu, opposite the town
Beloeil. One mile above Beloeil the Grand
Trunk Railroad crosses the stream, and here we
passed the night. Strong winds and rain squalls
interrupted our progress. At Chambly Basin
we tarried until the evening of July 16, before
entering the canal. Chambly is a
watering-place for Montreal people, who come here to
enjoy the fishing, which is said to be fair.
We had ascended one water-step at St. Ours.
Here we had eight steps to ascend within the
distance of one mile. By means of eight locks,
each one hundred and ten feet long by
twenty-two wide, the Mayeta was lifted seventy-five
feet and one inch in height to the upper level of
the canal. The lock-masters were courteous,
and wished us the usual "Bon voyage!" This
canal was built thirty-four years prior to my visit.
By ten o'clock P. M. We had passed the last lock,
and went into camp in a depression in the bank
of the canal. The journey was resumed at half
past three o'clock the following morning, and
the row of twelve miles to St. Johns was a
delightful one. The last lock (the only one at St.
Johns) was passed, and we had a full clearance
at the Dominion custom-house before noon.
We were again on the Richelieu, with about
twenty-three miles between us and the boundary
line of the United States and Canada, and with
very little current to impede us. As dusk
approached we passed a dismantled old fort,
situated upon an island called Ile aux Noix, and
entered a region inhabited by the large bull-frog,
where we camped for the night, amid the
dolorous voices of these choristers. On Saturday,
the 18th, at an early hour, we were pulling for
the United States, which was about six miles
from our camping-ground. The Richelieu
widened, and we entered Lake Champlain, passing
Fort Montgomery, which is about one thousand
feet south of the boundary line. Champlain has
a width of three fourths of a mile at Fort
Montgomery, and at Rouse's Point expands to two
miles and three quarters. The erection of the
fort was commenced soon after 1812, but in
1818 the work was suspended, as some one
discovered that the site was in Canada, and the
cognomen of Fort Blunder was applied. In the
Webster treaty of 1842, England ceded the
ground to the United States, and Fort
Montgomery was finished at a cost of over half a
million of dollars.
At Rouse's Point, which lies on the west shore
of Lake Champlain about one and one-half miles
south of its confluence with the Richelieu, the
Mayeta was inspected by the United States
custom-house officer, and nothing contraband being
discovered, the little craft was permitted to
continue her voyage.
At the northern end of the harbor of Rouse's
Point is the terminus of the Ogdensburg and the
Champlain and St. Lawrence railroads. The
Vermont Central Railroad connects with the
above by means of a bridge twenty-two hundred
feet in length, which crosses the lake. Before
proceeding further it may interest the reader of
practical mind to know that a very important
movement is on foot to facilitate the navigation
of vessels between the great Lakes, St. Lawrence
River, and Champlain, by the construction of
a ship-canal. The Caughnawaga Ship Canal
Company, "incorporated by special act of the
Dominion of Parliament of Canada, 12th May,
1870," (capital, three million dollars; shares, one
hundred dollars each,) with a board of directors
composed of citizens of the United States and
Canada, has issued its prospectus, from which I
extract the following:
"The commissioners of public works, in
their report of 1859, approved by government,
finally settled the question of route, by declaring
that, 'after a patient and mature consideration of
all the surveys and reports, we are of opinion
that the line following the Chambly Canal and
then crossing to Lake St. Louis near
Caughnawaga, is that which combines and affords in the
greatest degree all the advantages contemplated
by this improvement, and which has been
approved by Messrs. Mills, Swift, and Gamble.'
"The company's Act of Incorporation is in
every respect complete and comprehensive in its
details. It empowers the company to survey, to
take, appropriate, have and hold, to and for the
use of them and their successors, the line and
boundaries of a canal between the St. Lawrence
and Lake Champlain, to build and erect the
same, to select such sites as may be necessary
for basins and docks, as may be considered
expedient by the directors, and to purchase and
dispose of same, with any water-power, as may
be deemed best by the directors for the use and
profit of the company.
"It also empowers the company to cause their
canal to enter into the Chambly Canal, and to
widen, deepen, and enlarge the same, not less in
size than the present St. Lawrence canals; also
the company may take, hold, and use any
portion of the Chambly Canal, and the works
therewith connected, and all the tolls, receipts, and
revenues thereof, upon terms to be settled and
agreed upon between the company and the
governor in council.
"The cost of the canal, with locks of three
hundred feet by forty-five, and with ten feet six
inches the mitre-sill, is now estimated at two
million five hundred thousand dollars, and the
time for its construction may not exceed two
years after breaking ground.
"Probably no question is of more vital
importance to Canada and the western and eastern
United States than the subject of transportation.
The increasing commerce of the Great West, the
rapidity with which the population has of late
flowed into that vast tract of country to the west
and northwest of lakes Erie, Michigan, Huron,
and Superior, have served to convince all
well-informed commercial men that the means of
transit between that country and the seaboard
are far too limited even for the present
necessities of trade; hence it becomes a question of
universal interest how the products of the field, the
mine, and the forest can be most cheaply
forwarded to the consumer. Near the geographical
centre of North America is a vast plateau two
thousand feet above the level of the sea, drained
by the Mississippi to the south, by the St.
Lawrence to the east and by the Saskatchewan and
McKenzie to the north. This vast territory
would have been valueless but for the water
lines which afford cheap transport between it
and the great markets of the world.
"Canada has improved the St. Lawrence by
canals round the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and
by the Welland Canal, connecting lakes Erie and
Ontario, twenty-eight miles in length with a fall
of two hundred and sixty feet, capable of
passing vessels of four hundred tons. The St.
Lawrence, from the east end of Lake Ontario, has a
fall of two hundred and twenty feet, overcome
by seven short canals of an aggregate length of
forty-seven miles, capable of passing vessels of
six hundred and fifty tons. The Richelieu River
is connected with Lake Champlain by a canal
of twelve miles from Chambly. A canal of one
mile in length, at the outlet of Lake Superior,
connects that lake with Lake Huron, and has
two locks, which will pass vessels of two
thousand tons. New York has built a canal from
Buffalo, on Lake Erie, and from Oswego, on
Lake Ontario, to Albany, on the Hudson River,
of three hundred and sixty and of two hundred
and nine miles, capable of passing boats of two
hundred and ten tons; and she has also
constructed a canal from the Hudson River into
Lake Champlain of sixty-five miles, which can
pass boats of eighty tons.
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