He spent his childhood just down the street from the royal battery, right next to the warehouses and docks, the place of transit for merchandise between the two continents. His father Pierre initiated him at an early age into the secrets of the smithy: the iron, the fire, the sparks. The mysterious, unpredictable dance of the flame keeping time to the blows of the hammer on the anvil instilled an adventurers spirit in him.
As an adolescent, Joseph worked in the smithy and helped his father on Quebec’s fortifications; each spring, the powder magazine and walls damaged from the winter freeze needed repair. While working on those same damp ramparts, his father was felled by influenza. Joseph was barely out of adolescence. His sorrow lessened over time, and he remembered his father as a good, hard-working man. He still had his mother, Jacqueline Vandandaigne, of Flemish origin, an affectionate woman, who had a love of life, good food, and the things of this earth. He adored her. Nevertheless, he left her and set sail in mid-April, just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday…
Joseph’s daydreaming was cut short at the sight of an island silhouetted against the setting sun. The heart-shaped island disappeared then reappeared as the ship rode the waves. An island from another galaxy, another time. Its giant spruce trees, blackened by the savagery of this country of drizzle, seemed to tap the clouds for their sap, and the tall white birch trees stood out against the arc of the heavens like royalty banished amongst the commoners. The wild coast rose several leagues away, and when the captain spied a small cape, he decided to drop anchor at low tide for the crew to repair a leak. He barked his orders and L’Ensorceleuse sprang to life; men ran across the bridge, shimmied up the masts, and furled the sail. Calm was restored to the ship, and Joseph took out his violin; as he fiddled, glaciers marched past to the north of the island, like the wise men following the Star.
Miscou: the island that guarded a continent, dotted with cedars, spruce, and birch trees, its green and white sentries draped in magic and fog. Miscou: a name chosen by the Mi’kmaq to describe the low, marshy ground, a land haunted by the legendary giant, the terrible Gougou they called Koukhu. As tall as a ship’s mast, the monster, with a hideous female face, was known for her shrieks and for the prisoners it was rumoured she kept in her huge pocket for snacks. Was it not said that come nightfall, surrounded by peat bogs and the wild wheat of the heath, a furious parade of Mi’kmaq souls made pacts with the evil Gougou in order to take revenge on the white men who had invaded their land, profaned their sanctuaries, raped their women, and spread deadly diseases among their people? Was it not said as well that the sons of Eric the Red, those hulking bearded Vikings, had travelled these bays long before the end of the first millennium? The carved dragon that decorated the prow of a longship run aground on the point of the island seemed to confirm that fact. The ship was still visible at high tide, miraculously conserved, probably due to a special coating, like a blue whale poised to swim out to sea. But in truth, what didn’t one say when the fog enveloped Ile Miscou in its cottony cocoon pierced by the loon’s cry?
Joseph had no time for the rumours that haunted the crew that night because the two seagulls whose appearance announced the approach of land and the languorous notes of the violin brought to mind his fiancée, the charming Emilie, more beautiful than Miscou’s wild raspberry bushes, Emilie who had mysteriously disappeared, gone God knew where, vanished into thin air… It was said that a merchant ship had taken her to a distant country, but how to know for sure? With Emilie gone, living in Quebec had become a form of torture for Joseph. The sea breeze blowing up the St. Lawrence reminded him of the scent of her skin. The churchbells at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires carried the memory of one May evening, a gentle thrill; their first kiss, in the dark, next to the confessional. It was as though, even then, their love had been placed under a holy sign. When he walked through the narrow streets up high on Cap Diamant, he imagined he could see her dancing there, in rhythm with the breeze that stirred her long chestnut hair, and he seemed to hear, above the noise of the city, her laughter, which had brought him such joy.
In Quebec, Joseph had sunk into despair, confronted as he was with his sorrow at every turn. Then he heard the news of Isle Royale. Word came of a fortress built in honour of King Louis, with towers so high the Sun King’s sons could see them from Versailles; stonecutters were needed for the fortress, as they had been for the road to Berthier. The prospect of adventure made him smile. To set sail… the wide horizon, space, oblivion. The decision came easily. In an attempt to banish his fiancée from his mind, he let himself be drawn by the lure of adventure, encouraged by the stories of Sinbad the Sailor, which had been the stuff of his childhood daydreams. The British colonies of Boston will be kept in line, was his consoling thought.
L’Ensorceleuse set sail once more at dawn. As the ship cleaved through the waves with each gust of wind in its sails, they finally attempted an entry into the Baye des Chaleurs. Jacques Cartier must have had a vivid imagination to give this frigid bay the name “chaleur!“ Joseph, thought. One would expect orange, grapefruit, and coconut trees with a name like “chaleur.” Of course, he did arrive during a heat wave.
L’Ensorceleuse tacked from one gust to another as they sailed into headwinds. A school of porpoises frolicked in its wake. The sky was a deep blue, almost purple, and a few Northern Gannet, large white birds with black spots on the tips of their wings and their tails, dove for herring. Joseph was captivated by the spectacle as the ship arrived within view of a small crescent-shaped island baptized Caraquet5, which protected the bay.
“That’s just what the map shows,” he murmured. “The Indian camp must not be very far off.”
The ship rounded a long dune at the point of Caraquet, an island measuring three to four leagues and crowned with wild rose and raspberry bushes that came to life in the spring-time. On the coast nearby, a native village sat along the banks of a stream. They were Souriquois, or Mi’kmaq, and the tribe was made up of some twenty families – children, grandparents, and other relatives – approximately two hundred people who lived in conical tents made of long poles attached at the top and covered with hides and birchbark. It was more like a camp than a village because in the wintertime, several Mi’kmaq travelled south to the region of the Poquemouche or Miramichi rivers to hunt. There was a great bustle of activity along the coast. Thick white smoke billowed skyward. Herring, eel, and salmon were being smoked. Beaver, mink, otter, and silver fox pelts were being prepared to adorn members of the perfumed classes of Europe’s courts. Joseph felt nothing but scorn for certain nobles who arrived from Europe wearing their lace ruffles to establish their summer home. With their haughty airs, they were much more preoccupied with their curls than with the colony’s inhabitants. Joseph was even more disgusted after meeting during the crossing the pedantic marquis who was on L’Ensorceleuse with them, and who treated anyone trying to make his acquaintance with arrogance.
A few Mi’kmaq began shooting their rifles in the air in the general jubilation characterized by shouting and a joyous commotion. Others left the crabs, clams, and mussels they were gathering to jump into their canoes. Those seal-hunting at the point of Caraquet headed for the ship as well. Hyacinthe, who had often invited Joseph to dine at his table, loaned him his telescope. Surprise deepened the furrow in Joseph’s brow when he saw a white-bearded man wearing native clothes standing by one of the tents.
“That’s a white man,” he exclaimed.
The captain immediately replied. “That’s Gabriel Giraud, known as Saint-Jean. He’s always been a wily one, that one. It’s said he escaped from the galleys where he was serving a life sentence for counterfeit.”
“How long ago was that?” Joseph asked.
“Around 1711. The Mi’kmaq found him half-dead. They took care of him. He became a fur trader in the Miramichi. In 1730, he came here to the stream that now bears his name.”
Saint-Jean climbed into a canoe.
“They adopted him as
