Paris, they spoke of it as superstition for simple-minded people. But then, surrounded by so much strangeness, Champlain was no longer so sure that the Gougou was an invention.
The Montagnais described to the French a saltwater sea to the north which, six years later, proved to be the bay to which English navigator Henry Hudson would give his name. Especially interested in this body of water that he thought was a third ocean surrounding Canada, Champlain hoped to reach there by travelling up the Saguenay River in a canoe with a few Montagnais, whom he bombarded with questions. After about sixty kilometres, Champlain and Pont-Gravé decided to turn back. They could continue farther another time.
During the next few days, they navigated along the St. Lawrence in a small boat with a sail that had been transported on the deck of the Bonne Renomméle. They reached the Lachine rapids after passing Île aux Lièvres, Île aux Coudres, Île d'Orléans, and Montmorency Falls as well as the future sites of Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal.
Throughout the voyage, the navigator was on the lookout and observed the appearance of the coasts, forests, and meadows. The cartographer prepared relief maps. Certain areas were deemed “unpleasant” lands because nothing, it seemed, would ever grow, besides rocks and fir trees. In addition “these were veritable deserts uninhabitable by animals and birds.”
Elsewhere, what he saw was more appealing and let him picture ways of developing these splendid, untouched areas in the near future.
We came to drop anchor in Quebec, a strait in the aforementioned river of Canada, which is three hundred paces wide… The country is smooth and lovely, containing good land full of trees such as oaks, cypresses, birches, pines and aspens and other wild fruit trees and vines, which, in my opnion, if cultivated, would be as good as our own.
The snows began on the 6th of October. On the 3rd of December we saw sheets of ice floating by that had come from some frozen river. The bitter cold was more extreme than in France and lasted much longer. I think that comes from the north and northwest winds blowing over high mountains still covered in snow, which we had from three to four feet high, until the end of April.
“Whom does it concern this time?” Champlain asked, overcome.
“Marcel… It's big Marcel who'll remain here… like all the others!”
“Is it really blackleg? Is that definite?”
“What else can it be?… None of us will escape…”
The first attempt at settlement, on Île Ste. Croix, was a disaster. Champlain drew the buildings of this site, where “all being sand, everything burned there almost as soon as the sun shone on it.” From The Voyages of the Sieur de Champlain of Saintonge, Captain in Ordinary for the King in the Navy.
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