IllustrationWHO’S Ben Clarkson

THAT

The first cottager or a marauding invader? ’s influence in 1615 is still being debated 400 years later. Charlotte Gray, , and Douglas Hunter present three different perspectives of the first European in country on this momentous anniversary

78 cottagelife.com Summer 2015 MAN? By Charlotte Gray

1615: A SPACE ODYSSEY

The rocky pink islands of Georgian Bay, aglow in vivid sunsets. The sparkling, shallow waters of the French River and the tree-fringed lakes in the Kawarthas. Stands of majestic pines, their needle- was the toughest leg of the trip: the forty- heavy boughs rippling in the wind. ish explorer, his interpreter, a servant, That’s what we love about Ontario’s and 10 Algonquin guides must have had cottage country, right? This is our “wil- a wretched time paddling and portaging derness.” We overlook the buzz of Jet two large canoes through, in his words, Skis and the invasive species everywhere “an ill-favoured region…barren and unin- so that we can wallow in the idea that habited,” full of “rocks and mountains.” we are communing with nature. We Only the abundance of blueberries raised assume that our summer sojourns on his spirits. At first glance, it seems much this landscape are surface scratches the same today. But a closer look at the on its immutable ecology. map reveals that, thanks to a mining Not so. Southern Ontario was once frenzy 300 years after Champlain strug- covered in first-growth oak, birch, maple, gled across the land, tailings piles and and pine forests. And people have been abandoned rail lines now lurk beneath resculpting this landscape for centuries. the tangled undergrowth. In 1615, when the French cartographer When our explorer reached Georgian and soldier Samuel de Champlain made Bay, his heart sank: the water was not his epic trip through this region—the salty, so he knew he had not discovered first European to circle from the the long-sought route to China. But after River to Lake Ontario via Lake Huron— the blackflies and the brambles of sweaty he did not kid himself that he was look- portages on the Shield, it was a relief ing at virgin wilderness. He saw signs of for his small party to reach open water. human habitation almost everywhere. And the fishing! I’m afraid that, because Space is space whether on the ground of pollution and overfishing, these days or in the sky, and Samuel de Champlain anglers would be hard-pressed to come reminds me a little of our astronaut Chris across a lake trout or pike of a size that Hadfield—a space traveller who delights the Frenchman caught. Champlain in learning about people and making also enjoyed meeting the local residents friends. Champlain’s space comprised and, being a jovial, friendly fellow, telling the vast areas from North America’s them how much he admired their care- eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes. In fully styled dark hair—“raised very high, his lifetime (circa 1574–1635), he made and arranged and combed better than at least 27 voyages from France to the our courtiers.” New World. He was both a dreamer and Where are those Wendat people—the a doer, determined to establish a French “Cheveux-Relevés” (“High Hairs”), he colony in North America in which both called them—today? Disappeared from and European settlers this region, along with the lake sturgeon would prosper. A stocky, muscular, dark- that were nine feet long: “a very large bearded man (if the only known portrait fish and marvelously good eating.” of him is correct), the “Father of New For a contemporary Canadian, the most France” faced danger fearlessly and took surprising part of Champlain’s travel careful notes. journal deals with the region now called The first part of his 1615 journey took Huronia, which stretches from the him up the Ottawa River, then across the southern tip of Georgian Bay, north of Canadian Shield into Georgian Bay. This Orillia, to Lake { Continued on page 122 }

80 cottagelife.com Summer 2015 Summer 2015 cottagelife.com 81 DON-DE-DIEU By Joseph Boyden

the height of their powers in the 1600s range from 20,000 to 40,000 souls. Within a couple of decades of Cham- plain sending French missionaries to the Huron city states of Southern Ontario, their population was whittled down, mostly due to European-borne disease, In July of 1609, Samuel de Champlain, to maybe 10,000. Three in four Huron along with a small group of French sol- met a painful and horrible death from diers and a band of Wendat, fought a illnesses such as smallpox and scarlet much larger group of Haudenosaunee in fever. This, combined with Champlain’s what he pictured as the endgame of his what is presently upstate New York. refusal to properly arm the Huron attempt to Christianize the sauvages he Using his harquebus, a weapon new to against their enemy, is the reason his- became friends with. Yes, he must have the Native world, Champlain killed two torians offer for the devastating over- known that he was tearing apart the Haudenosaunee chiefs with one shot. throw of the once mighty Huron empire. cultural fabric of a people when he sent The Haudenosaunee fled, and in the But I don’t mean for this to be sim- his soldiers of Christ in to wage their blood of their dead a new alliance of the ply a history lecture. For many years holy war. After all, his firm belief that Wendat and the French was made. I worked on a novel called The Orenda, his culture was far superior to those In the next decades, what I call one which captures the rise and fall of the with which he came into contact in “the of the world’s first arms races erupted Wendat. As much as I’m fascinated by new world” sadly still exists in so many as these two great Native nations vied history, I’m loath to speak about such quarters of this nation today. But com- for control of the very lucrative trade brilliant beings as the Wendat and plex and complicated and advanced civi- with the strange and alien empires from the Haudenosaunee from a distant per- lizations already existed here before the across the great water. The Haudeno- spective, from a vantage point that sug- arrival of the first Europeans. Both the saunee made an alliance with the Dutch, gests that either is simply a relic of Wendat and the Haudenosaunee were who were more than willing to supply the past. The Wendat today survive in humans with human wants and human them with as many of these deadly and as the Wyandotte people desires, and yes, human faults too. new weapons as they could afford. But of Oklahoma. And of course the Haude- On one of Champlain’s first voyages Champlain and the French feared the nosaunee, the , are not just to the New World, he arrived on a ship Wendat obtaining too much firepower some of the world’s greatest warriors named Don-de-Dieu, the Gift of God. and were very careful in controlling the but also the creators of the Great Law And it seems clear to me that this is trickle of weapons. Instead, they sup- of Peace, a doctrine used in large part exactly what he felt he was bringing to plied the Wendat with Récollet, then as a model for the U.S. Constitution. that foreign and frightening and massive Jesuit missionaries come from France And of course Samuel de Champlain place. I believe that there’s great irony and put in charge of saving the souls will live on in monuments and in history in that name, especially considering the of these sauvages. books, in street and college names. Just eventual near-annihilation of a people I often wonder if the Wendat would as I wonder if the Wendat would have who were his allies. But I’ll let you, dear have made this alliance with Champlain questioned their alliance, I also wonder cottager, decide for yourself. if they had known what was to happen to if Champlain would have questioned his them 40 years later. The European name side of the bargain had he known what Joseph Boyden’s books include Three Day for Wendat is Huron, and in March of was in store. He died on Christmas Day Road and . 1649, the Huron were finally overrun and of 1635 and would not have known the scattered to the winds by the Haudeno- coming destruction of a people he helped saunee, who Europeans call Iroquois. set into motion two and a half decades Estimates of the Huron population at before. There’s plenty of debate as to

82 cottagelife.com Summer 2015 Summer 2015 cottagelife.com 83 By Douglas Hunter

THE MACCALLUM CHAMPLAIN

It’s funny how your memory can play tricks where art is concerned. When I’m in Ottawa, I usually visit the National Gallery of , and I always see the panels from the MacCallum cottage that feature Samuel de Champlain. It is hard to say, but Champlain doesn’t ophthalmologist James MacCallum was seem happy about what’s going on. a benefactor to a group of Toronto-based Champlain was a key figure in the landscape painters who would visit his MacCallum panels because he would cottage on Go Home Bay on eastern have paddled by on his journey to Wen- Georgian Bay. Several of them would go dake (Huronia) in 1615–16 and because on to become members of the Group of the tercentenary of that visit was being Seven, and MacCallum had the bright marked as MacDonald painted. Cham- idea of having his guests essentially pay plain’s fame in Canadian history was their room and board by contributing never greater. In the rising nationalism decorative interior panels. James Edward born in the 19th century, countries forged Hervey (J.E.H.) MacDonald, who was an supportive historical narratives, and experienced commercial illustrator as for a young Canada, Champlain filled the well as one such future Group of Seven role of a founding father. It’s a curiosity member, drew the prime assignment of of Canadian history that Protestant filling the panels on either side of the English Canada so embraced Champlain, fireplace. In 1915–16 MacDonald created an arch-Catholic Frenchman who only a tableau known today as Inhabitants visited what became Ontario twice, in of Go-Home Bay. The panel on the right, 1613 and 1615–16. The Present, features a contemporary Ontario wanted Champlain as a indigenous hunter with a rifle, a com- founding father, but on the MacCallum mercial fisherman, and an axe-sporting cottage wall, MacDonald created a ver- woodsman. The panel on the left, Times sion of him at odds with the heroic poses Past, depicts four figures in the rock- he usually strikes, in a scene that fore- and-pine landscape: Samuel de Cham- shadows the Wendake tragedy of death plain, a Wendat man, a priest, and a and dispersion after the coming of the Wendat child. The priest (likely Récol- Black Robes. I still cannot decide whether let) is seated on a rock with his back Champlain’s face conveys authoritarian turned, dangling a crucifix before the approval of the priest’s proselytizing or wide-eyed child. I have a feeling that pensive disquiet rooted in some fore- MacDonald was suggesting some hyp- knowledge of the misery and tragedy he notic conversion was going on. is about to unleash by insisting that the As I recalled the panel, MacDonald Wendat accept priests among them as had portrayed Champlain in the finest a condition of trade. We should be no tradition of pictorial swagger. Portraits of less ambivalent about what we are cele- him since the 19th century usually are a brating on this 400th anniversary of cross between one of Dumas’ Three Mus- Champlain’s visit. keteers and a lost cousin of the pirate on the Captain Morgan rum bottle (we actu- Douglas Hunter wrote God’s Mercies, ally have almost no idea what he looked about the exploration rivalry between like). But the last time I viewed the paint- Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain. ing, I saw a different Champlain, sombre as he eyes the priest and the child with his arms crossed. Supervising or judging?

84 cottagelife.com Summer 2015 Summer 2015 cottagelife.com 85 SWEET TEMPTATION WHO’S THAT MAN? { Continued from page 76 } { Continued from page 80 }

Tearing down to build new would Ontario, near Belleville. Champlain have solved their problems. But “we feel described the land as “a well-cleared we’re custodians here—we’re responsible country…fair and fertile” and “peopled for this original 1885 cottage,” Jim says. with a countless number of souls”—by your marine doCking So the family turned to Toronto-based his estimate, at least 30,000. Vast corn- Solares Architecture, a firm whose work fields surrounded the well-fortified set- & lift SPeCialiStS they’d seen in a magazine and that they tlements: Huronia was the breadbasket for over 40 yearS had considered for renovations at The of other indigenous nations. It also pro- Swamp. Solares was still in its infancy duced squashes and sunflowers, plums at the time, but something about the and berries. Champlain particularly outfit’s young partners, the husband- admired the way that the Huron, as he and-wife team of Christine Lolley and called the Wendat, were “covered in the Tom Knezic, and their thoughtful ideas pelts of deer and beaver, which they about sustainable residential design, acquired from Algonquins and Nippiss- inspired Cathy and Jim’s confidence. ing for Indian corn and meal.” “I remember being really excited,” says He makes southeastern Ontario sound Knezic of the project. “But it was one of like Holland, doesn’t he? An intensively the most complex buildings we’d seen, cultivated territory, thickly peopled not because of the scale but because none by savvy traders. Yet two centuries later, of the rooms aligned with the others.” British settlers found an “empty land” He adds with a laugh, “Fortunately, we awaiting discovery and conquest. Euro- have powerful modelling software.” pean diseases and conquest had devas- “The trend in Muskoka is to tear down,” tated the Wendat, and most of their land says Lolley, “but we would have had to had reverted to bush—the same back- conform to the current setbacks.” And woods tangle of trees and scrub that everyone was in agreement there: the Susanna Moodie called a “dark prison.” cottage’s proximity to the water was one Today, this region has changed again. of its best features. They decided to take Beyond the sprawl of the Golden Horse- the place apart and redesign and restore shoe, small towns and holiday properties it on the same footprint. Their goals cling to the shores of gurgling rivers and included improving the flow, brightening gin-clear lakes. On a recent visit to Stony the interior, increasing efficiency, and Lake near Peterborough, I talked to a cot- reusing materials where they could to tager who recalled his mother boasting retain the feeling of the old cottage. “We that Champlain had been there in late wanted the building to look like it hadn’t August 1615. “She claimed that he had even been renovated,” says Knezic. planted yellow day lilies along the shore By looking at the cottage as a whole, as he paddled through.” Perhaps: Cham- exploring the ways the family likes to plain was a great gardener who loved live there—how and where they like to roses and fruit trees, and Stony Lake’s congregate, how they use various spaces, day lilies are a striking chrome yellow. how many people they need to accom- But it isn’t the same shoreline. When Quality waterfront solutions modate—Knezic and Lolley were able to the Trent-Severn Waterway was being manufactured in Lakefield, Ontario take the building’s original envelope and built in the late 19th century, the water by the family owned and operated reconfigure it for modern family life. level at Stony Lake was raised six feet. R&J Machine. “We were correcting history a little bit,” The only elements in our cottage Docks, Boat Lifts, Marine Railways, says Knezic. “We rebuilt it the way it country that the 17th-century space Permanent Steel Docks and should have been originally.” From the traveller might recognize are the blue- Boathouse Structures. outside, you can hardly tell the 130-year- berries and the day lilies. Subsequent old cottage has had a major overhaul. generations of settlers, miners, farmers, www.rjmachine.ca But inside, the place has become a func- builders, and anglers have remodelled tional and much-loved family gathering everything else.a 705-652-6731 place. Let the memories begin.a 1-800-461-7638 Charlotte Gray is the author of nine non- Toronto-based writer Jennifer David is a fiction books. Her most recent, The Massey Proudly Canadian made in lakefield, ontario passionate Stony Lake cottager. Murder, has won four awards.

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