Notes du cours AS/FR 3130 6.0: Sémantique et lexicologie du français / French Semantics and Lexicology
«Illiterate Explorer Left Few Records: A French Farmboy was First to Travel Countryside of King»
Article by Terry Carter, published in The Tribune, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000, p. 12. Terry Carter is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Aurora Era-Banner and author of «Newmarket: The Heart of York Region»
The first European to travel through the rolling countryside of King and Vaughan was the French farmboy turned rascally fur trader and explorer, Étienne Brûlé. Almost 400 years ago, he made the trip on foot, carrrying pack and canoe, between the Holland and Humber rivers, brining him right through the site of Kleinburg.
Brûlé had left his parents’ farm south of Paris at 16 to join Samuel de Champlain’s expedition to the New World. Settling the first winter at the site that was to become Quebec City, the lad discovered a facility for languages and picked up Montagnais, the local Indian tongue.
The Frenchmen soon became involved in the tribal wars of the Hurons, Algonquins and Montagnais against the Iroquois.
At 18, Brûlé was sent to winter among the Hurons on the shores of Georgian Bay so he could learn their language and customs and explore their country.
Champlain was especially interested in knowing whether any mines, sources of gold, silver or copper were in the area.
The young man fit right in, adopting the Huron dress, food and other ways. It was 12 months befrore he returned to Quebec, but not longg after thant he was back living with his Huron friends for another four years.
The tribal wars were endangering Champlain’s hard-won fur trade. Iroquois waar parties from south of Lake Ontario were ambushing Huron trading parties before they reached Quebec and trade was hurting.
The French leader visited Huronia and decided to attack the Iroquois town of Onondaga. He sent a mission to recruit the help of the Andastes, Huron allies who lived on the banks of the Susquehanna River in today’s eastern Pennsylvania. Brûlé accepted the challenge to lead the delegation.
It was this mission that brought Brûlé down the Carrying Place trail between lakes Simcoe and Ontario. In September 1614, his little party of 12 Hurons and two canoes came down lakes Couchiching and Simcoe and up the Holland River. Then came the long portage to the mouth of the Humber via the Carrying Place Trail.
Although this was the first trip by a white man through what early visitors called “the green mountains” [= the rolling hills of King], it is only one of many firsts by this remarkable explorer.
He was first to make the long journey from Quebec to Lake Huron by the Ottawa River, first to enter what is now the Province of Ontario, the first in all likelihood to sail Lake Ontario, visit the Niagara Peninsula, cross northern New York and descend the Susquehanna. He as also the first to stand on the shores of Lake Superior.
Poor Brûlé. He was so maligned by his contemporaries because of his lifestyle — he lived over 23 years among the hurons — that accurate records are few and much of his life is a mystery to us. And because he was illiterate, he left no records of his own.
And then there was the matter of his end. He lost favour with his “hosts”, was tortured killed, quartered and his remains put into a pot and boiled. Then his former neighbours ate him.
P. S. The author fails to tell us why Brûlé lost favour with the Hurons. Legend has it that Brûlé’s men brought their hosts an unwanted gift: syphilis. And, in those days, syphilis was a certain killer. As for Brûlé’s fate, to eat the body of your adversary, especially his heart, was to acquire all his attributes.Thus, far from insulting the young explorer, the guests at this special banquet were actually paying tribute to Brûlé’s courage and manliness.
If you know more of Étienne Brûlé’s exploits, send me news of them. I understand that he helped establish Fort Rouillé at the mouth of the Humber, ca. 1615, but there’s absolutely no truth to the rumour that he founded l’École secondaire Étienne Brûlé, in North York!