The Jesuit Missions | Page 7

When not engaged in gathering furs or
loading and unloading vessels, the men lounged in indolence about the
trading-posts or wandered to the hunting grounds of the Indians, where
they lived in squalor and vice. The avarice of the traders was bearing its
natural fruit, and the untiring efforts of Champlain, a devoted, zealous
patriot, had been unavailing to counteract it. The colony sorely needed
the self-sacrificing Jesuits, but for whom it would soon undoubtedly
have been cast off by the mother country as a worthless burden. To
them Canada, indeed, owed its life; for when the king grew weary of
spending treasure on this unprofitable colony, the stirring appeals of the
Relations [Footnote: It was a rule of the Society of Jesus that each of its
missionaries should write a report of his work. These reports, known as
Relations, were generally printed and sold by the booksellers of Paris.
About forty volumes of the Relations from the missions of Canada

were published between 1632 and 1672 and widely read in France.]
moved both king and people to sustain it until the time arrived when
New France was valued as a barrier against New England.
Scarcely had the Jesuits made themselves at home in the convent of the
Recollets when they began planning for the mission. It was decided that
Lalemant and Masse should remain at Quebec; but Brebeuf, believing,
like the Recollets, that little of permanent value could be done among
the ever-shifting Algonquins, desired to start at once for the populous
towns of Huronia. In July, in company with the Recollet La Roche de
Daillon, Brebeuf set out for Three Rivers. The Indians--Hurons,
Algonquins, and Ottawas--had gathered at Cape Victory, a promontory
in Lake St Peter near the point where the lake narrows again into the St
Lawrence. There, too, stood French vessels laden with goods for barter;
and thither went the two missionaries to make friends with the Indians
and to lay in a store of goods for the voyage to Huronia and for use at
the mission. The captains of the vessels appeared friendly and supplied
the priests with coloured beads, knives, kettles, and other articles. All
was going well for the journey, when, on the eve of departure, a runner
arrived from Montreal bringing evil news.
For a year the Recollet Nicolas Viel had remained in Huronia. Early in
1624 he had written to Father Piat hoping that he might live and die in
his Huron mission at Carhagouha. There is no record of his sojourn in
Huronia during the winter 1624-25. Alone among the savages, with a
scant knowledge of their language, his spirit must have been oppressed
with a burden almost too great to be borne; he must have longed for the
companionship of men of his own language and faith. At any rate, in
the early summer of 1625 he had set out for Quebec with a party of
trading Hurons for the purpose of spending some time in retreat at the
residence on the banks of the St Charles. He was never to reach his
destination. On arriving at the Riviere des Prairies, his Indian
conductors, instead of portaging their canoes past the treacherous
rapids in this river, had attempted to run them, and a disaster had
followed. The canoe bearing Father Viel and a young Huron convert
named Ahaustic (the Little Fish) had been overturned and both had
been drowned.

[Footnote: This rapid has since been known as Sault au Recollet and a
village near by bears the name of Ahuntsic, a corruption of the young
convert's name. Father A. E. Jones, S. J., in his 'Old Huronia' (Ontario
Archives), points out that no such word as Ahuntsic could find a place
in a Huron vocabulary.]
The story brought to Cape Victory was that the tragedy had been due to
the treacherous conduct of three evil-hearted Hurons who coveted the
goods the priest had with him. On the advice of the traders, who feared
that the Hurons were in no spirit to receive the missionaries, Brebeuf
and Daillon concluded not to attempt the ascent of the Ottawa for the
present, and returned to Quebec. Ten years later, such a report would
not have moved Brebeuf to turn back, but would have been an added
incentive to press forward.
CHAPTER III
IN HURONIA
The Jesuits, with the exception of Brebeuf, spent the winter of 1625-26
at the convent of the Recollets, no doubt enduring privation, as at that
time there was a scarcity of food in the colony. Brebeuf, eager to study
the Indians in their homes, joined a party of Montagnais hunters and
journeyed with them to their wintering grounds. He suffered much
from hunger and cold, and from the insanitary conditions under which
he was compelled to live in the filthy,