Samuel De Champlain's Landfall in Huronia
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
MONTGOMERY: CHAMPLAIN'S LANDFALL 3 The Lost Seven Leagues: Samuel de Champlain's Landfall in Huronia David Montgomery Champlain's landfall in Huronia was more likely on Toanché: The Jesuit Tradition of the western shoreline of the Penetang Peninsula facing Nottawasaga Bay than on the opposite side of One Landing Place the peninsula near present-day Penetanguishene, Discussion about the exact location of Champlain's where it is currently commemorated. I reassess the landing place on his 1615 trip to Huronia has had a accuracy of distances in Champlain's Works, and note long history. There was agreement that the general the curious omission of the last seven leagues of his location was opposite the eastern shore of Georgian journey in subsequent historical analyses of his route. Bay. Simcoe County historian A.H. Hunter set out The area of Champlain's landfall has considerable the prevailing view at the turn of the century: potential for archaeological investigation. After long voyages by canoe from Quebec, following the Ottawa and French Rivers to Georgian Bay and Introduction then passing down the eastern shore It has long been taken for granted that Samuel de of the latter, they made their first Champlain, the first European to record his visit to halt somewhere on the north end of the country of the Huron Indians in Southern the peninsula, having found there the Ontario, initially landed near Penetanguishene, settled Huron communities they were opposite the eastern shore of Georgian Bay. A seeking. With such historic commemorative monument is situated across from associations as these, Tiny the town on a narrow inland extension of Georgian [Township], first of all the parts Bay (Fig. 1). The assumption that this is near the site visited by these early travellers, of the landfall has prevailed since 1908, and except deserves to receive attention in our for some debate about the exact location in this endeavours to interpret correctly vicinity, has not been seriously questioned. their interesting narratives and to identify the places where they However, this assumption is not supported by sojourned (Hunter 1899:5). Champlain's writings. According to his own geographic descriptions and estimates of distance In the description of his journey to the Huron, travelled, Champlain's first landfall could be 20 km Champlain sets out specific estimates of distance or more from the monument site. Somehow the last which do not support the conclusion that the landing seven leagues he travelled on his journey to Huronia spot was "on the north end of the peninsula." By and in 1615 have been lost to history. When they are put large these distances have been ignored in favour of back Champlain's landfall is placed as far from the tradition which places the landing near Toanché, Penetanguishene as the Coldwater River at the foot the site of the first mission of the Jesuit Order. of Matchedash Bay in one direction, or near the Champlain began his 1615 journey to Huronia from community of Balm Beach in Nottawasaga Bay in the junction of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers the other, more likely, direction. on 9 July (Fig. 2). He travelled in a party with two This paper first seeks an explanation for this other Frenchmen and ten Indians (who were probably somewhat surprising historical oversight. It then Hurons, or as Champlain referred to Hurons, examines the accuracy and reliability of Champlain's "Attigouautans"). The small band in two canoes estimates of distance on his 1615 journey, and paddled up the Ottawa River to the mouth identifies alternative landing sites based on these estimates. 4 ONTARIO ARCHAEOLOGY NO. 52 FIGURE 1 Champlain's Monument in Huronia Near the Location of Toanché According to A.E. Jones (1908) MONTGOMERY: CHAMPLAIN'S LANDFALL 5 of its tributary, the Mattawa, then proceeded up ably it was the "lieue d'une heure;" that river arriving at Lake Nipissing on 26 July. for as they evidently did not Two days later they continued their journey down measure off the distances given in the French River to Georgian Bay. Champlain's the Relations, they naturally com- description of the final leg of the journey from this puted the space travelled by the point appears in Voyages et Descouvertures: time it took to tramp from village to The next day we parted [from the village...For this reason I have mouth of the French River], and always taken three statute miles, or continued our journey along the one land league, as about equivalent shore of this Lake of the Attigou- to the "lieue" of the Relations autans, in which there are a great (Jones 1908:115). number of islands; and we made In the Seventeenth century distance was calculated about forty-five leagues, keeping simply by "dead reckoning" (Heidenreich 1975:- along the shore of this lake ... 136). Knowledge of this fact alone would probably Then afterwards we crossed a bay make any commentator skeptical about Champlain's which forms one of the extremities distances. Consequently, when distances based on of the lake, and made some seven 4.8 km per league were found to be nonsensical, it leagues until we reached the coun- was too easy to assume that he was unable to try of the Attigouautan, and came estimate accurately on the basis of dead reckoning. on the first of August to a village For example, in the passage quoted above in which called Otoüacha (Champlain III:- he estimated his travelling distance along the 45-46). eastern shore of Georgian Bay as forty-five leagues This passage is accompanied by a footnote which (i.e. 216 km), his landfall would have been well comments on the "seven leagues" - the only direct beyond the southern extremity of Georgian Bay, reference which I found in a survey of the litera- and closer, in fact, to the southern shore of Lake ture. The footnote appears after the phrase, "coun- Simcoe (Fig. 2). try of the Attigouautan," and is attributed to l'Abbé It is generally agreed that Champlain followed the Laverdière (1870): "This was mainly the peninsula canoe route described by Hunter: between Matchedash and Nottawasaga Bays, and As the island called Beausoleil's ... therefore the seven leagues can only be understood lies in the course of a canoe of the journey across the former Bay from the paddled across the entrance of eastern shore of Georgian Bay" (Champlain III:46). Matchedash Bay, from the rocky The length of a canoe route from the eastern islands of the eastern shore to the shore of Georgian Bay to the northeast corner of opposite mainland of Simcoe the Penetang Peninsula is eight km at most (Fig. l). County, we may infer the most This distance is much shorter than seven leagues. convenient landing place to be Laverdière seemed quite prepared to ignore somewhere on this mainland oppo- Champlain's distance. Why? There are two site the south corner of this island possible explanations. ... The same island ... has yielded The first has to do with the unit of measurement, remains of Hurons, thus affording the "league." This is usually regarded as the equiv- further proof of having been on the alent of three statute miles or 4.8 km. As discussed line of travel in that early time later, the length of a league was variable. (Hunter 1909:l). However, the commonly accepted view seemed to The distance from the south corner of Beausoleil be that a league was "the distance a man could Island to the monument on the mainland is six km, walk in an hour over an unimpeded course" (Heid- significantly less than Champlain's estimate of enreich 1968:40; 1975;121,130). This, for seven leagues. example, is the length A.E. Jones adopts in his Early researchers seemed predisposed to the view detailed 1908 study of the location of Jesuit that the landing place must be near Penetang Bay. missions and Huron villages: The root of this belief was the longstanding assum- At this date it is impossible to say ption that the village where Champlain first landed, with absolute certainty which of Otoüacha, was the same village referred to in the all the different leagues ... was the Jesuit Relations (Thwaites 1896-1901) as one the Fathers made use of in their calculations, but most prob- 6 ONTARIO ARCHAEOLOGY NO. 52 FIGURE 2 From the Lachine Rapids to Huronia MONTGOMERY: CHAMPLAIN'S LANDFALL 7 Toanché - the frequently mentioned early port of acha was indeed Toanché (Jones entry of the Jesuits, and the place where Etienne 1908:61). Brulé died in mysterious circumstances (Jones The last paragraph succinctly describes what 1908:56; Jurgens 1966:130-33; Heidenreich 1971:- seems to have been conventional wisdom until very 31,251; Trigger 1976:300,473-76). This association recently. At the same time, this location for was given formal recognition in Jones' "8endake Otoüacha/Toanché was too close to the top of Ehen" or Old Huronia. This exhaustive study was an Beausoleil Island, 12 km, to be consistent with attempt to identify the locations of Jesuit missions Champlain's estimate of seven leagues. However, and Huron villages with reference to contemporary Steckley (1987) suggests that Jones improperly Seventeenth century sources, especially the Jesuit applied the rules of Huron grammar in making the Relations, and translations of Huron village names association between Otoüacha and Toanché. As a appearing in these documents. Jones located Toanché result, "on linguistic grounds Touaguainchain is a a little less than 2 km inland from Michaud Point much more likely candidate for Toanché than is (Jones 1908:56), the site of the commemorative Otouacha" (Steckley 1987:29).