Part 5 (1/2)
When boys and girls wish to travel where they can see many strange and wonderful sights, they would do well to take a summer's trip to Alaska,-the land of gold and fur, of waterfalls, geysers and glaciers.
CHAPTER IV-Little Folks of Canada
The First White Settlers
If you look at the map of North America, you will find that nearly the whole upper half, with the exception of Alaska, bears the name of the Dominion of Canada. Its northern sh.o.r.es are bathed by the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. On the east is the great Atlantic, and on the west is the stormy Pacific. The boys and girls who live in this vast country can travel for hundreds of miles along mighty rivers; they can sail on lakes so great that they may lose sight of land and grow seasick from the motion of the boat as it moves through the waves; they can climb high mountains capped with snow in the hottest summer weather; they can wander over vast prairies for days and even weeks at a time with no view of anything as far as the eye can see, save miles and miles of gra.s.s; they can lose themselves in thick forests where only wild animals and Indian hunters have ever ventured before. All these things are possible for the Canadian child without moving out of the land which he calls home.
Once upon a time, less than fifty years after Columbus discovered the New World, a brave Frenchman named Jacques Cartier left his sunny home in France, and sailed into the west. The king of France had heard of the wonderful land which Columbus had discovered, and which the Spaniards had begun to settle. He wished to have some part of it for himself, so he directed Cartier to go farther north than the Spaniards had done.
When he reached a good place for a home, he was to land and set up the flag of France.
Cartier, with two s.h.i.+ps, each of which bore sixty-one men, set out. They crossed the ocean and arrived on the coast of a large island. Its sh.o.r.es were still blocked with ice, although it was the month of April. To-day we know this island as Newfoundland or New-found-land. The Frenchmen were not pleased with the country, for it looked bare and rocky. When they landed, they were met by savages with red skins and black hair tied on the top of their heads, ”Like a wreath of hay,” as Carter said. He was quite sure that this was not a fit place for a home; so the s.h.i.+ps were turned northward. They soon entered a large gulf which received the name of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
On the sh.o.r.es of this gulf the white men were also met by Indians, whose homes were their upturned canoes. The savages wore little or no clothing; they lived on fish and flesh that was scarcely cooked; they seemed poor and very savage. The country, which was the mainland of Canada, looked pleasant, and Carter set up a tall cross and took possession of it in the name of France. He induced the Indian chief to allow his two sons to go back to France with him. Then he set sail for home, eager to tell his friends of the land he had visited.
The next year Cartier returned to Canada with a goodly company. They entered the gulf of St. Lawrence, as they had done before, but they sailed on until they came to the mouth of a wide river.
”It flows from afar off,” said the two Indians who had gone to France with Cartier, and who had returned with him. ”No man has ever seen its beginning,” they continued.
”Perhaps,” thought Cartier, who had no idea how vast was the new land that he had discovered, ”it is not a river. It is so broad and so deep, it may be an arm of the ocean, and if I follow it, I may find the short way to India, about which so many have dreamed.”
So he and his men kept on their way up the St. Lawrence River, stopping from time to time to admire the beautiful country and the wonderful sights that met them on every hand. Wild grape vines hung from the trees along the banks, and the delicious fruit was even now ripening.
Water-fowls flew over their heads, and they got glimpses of wild animals such as they had never seen before. Most interesting of all were the little Indian villages scattered here and there along the sh.o.r.e.
From one of the settlements Cartier was pa.s.sing, the people came out in their canoes to get a better sight of the white men, but they were afraid to come close to the s.h.i.+ps, till Cartier's two young Indian friends spoke to them and told them not to fear. Then they came on board and listened to the story of the visit the two Indian youths had made in France, and of the wonderful things that had happened to them. The Indians were now quite sure that the strangers meant only good to them, and that there was nothing to fear.
They hastened to bring presents to the visitors and show friends.h.i.+p in every way that they knew. Cartier did not stay long in the place, however. He sailed on till he came to a fine harbor beneath steep, high cliffs. An Indian village stood here. To-day it is the site of the city of Quebec.
”Farther on, up the river, is a still larger town of our people, and it is ruled over by a very powerful chief,” the Indians there told him.
”But the way is long and dangerous,” added their own chief. ”You had better not go there.”
When he said this, he was thinking of the store of knives, bright-colored beads, and tiny looking-gla.s.ses the white men had shown him. A few of these strange and beautiful things had been given to him.
He could not bear to think of that other chief also receiving some.
But Cartier was not to be frightened. He set sail once more and for thirteen days the s.h.i.+ps kept on their way up the river. From time to time they stopped at Indian villages where the red children and their parents came dancing about them, bringing presents of fruit and fish.
The savages told many stories about the country beyond; gold and precious stones were to be found there, and there were strange beings who lived without food. Still Cartier traveled on until he reached a village of at least fifty huts.
There was a three-fold wall of stakes around it, and fields where leaves of corn were waving in the autumn wind. Behind this village was a hill which Cartier called Mount Royal. To-day, in the very spot where the Indian village once stood, is the large city of Montreal, the most important one in the country. Cartier and his men stayed in Canada for several months. They built two forts on the banks of the St. Lawrence; they made gardens, and marked out a road. They were of good heart until the long, cold winter was upon them, longer and colder than they had ever known. Many grew homesick with longing for sunny France; others fell ill. At last they decided to give up the settlement and to return home.
After that French s.h.i.+ps visited Canada from time to time. They stopped to get loads of furs which the Indians were glad to sell, but no one came to settle in the country for many years.
At last the king of France said to himself, ”I cannot hold the land on the other side of the ocean, unless I send people there to settle, and it is worth while to keep it because of the furs we can get in trade from the Indian hunters.”
He sent over a colony of settlers who came sailing one bright day into the harbor of Port Royal. They landed on the beautiful sh.o.r.e and were soon busy building a chapel and a fort, as well as homes for themselves.