The Waters Between

by Mary Ducharme (June 2021)

In Paris in 1609, Samuel de Champlain lit another candle in the dim room. After dipping his pen in the inkwell, the scratching of pen on parchment continued. On a table nearby were maps illustrating his experiences in the new world. On the maps some of the place names are lost to time, some remain familiar: Bitawbagok, Abenaki for The Waters Between, is now Lake Champlain. This beautiful lake, 172 km long, he named for himself. On one side of the lake are the Green Mountains, and the other side the Adirondack Mountains, named for the Algonkian people. To the north is Missisquoi, named for the People of the Flint in Abenaki. The Iroquois River on his map is now called the Richelieu.

Champlain’s passion for designing a New France was dismissed as a pipe dream by some, but his followers knew that he had a reputation of translating ideas into action. His venture promised new wealth in fur and fish. Henry IV of France had a keen interest in Champlain, but a different vision than his protégé. He intended a larger kingdom with a better feudal system and a ladder of ranks, ruled from the top down. However, Henry was assassinated in 1610. Henry’s widow, Marie de’ Medici, who disliked the commoner and his presumption of friendship with a king cut off his annual annuity, a severe blow to his income. Nonetheless mentors were willing to take a financial gamble by supplying ships for the venture. More important to Champlain was the transportation from France to New France of the dream of peaceful coexistence of different cultures, prosperous trade, the spreading of the Catholic faith, and the exploration and mapping of Canada. Champlain advocated his ideas in France, but commented in his writings that imagination and table talk was not the work of discovery. An explorer must put his feet on the land, and learn from the Natives of that place.

The tribes placed significance in dreams, and they often asked him whether he had dreamed of their enemy and he answered no to encourage them. He records that one night he dreamed of the enemy drowning, men, women, and children and feeling anxious, he wanted to save them. He relayed the dream and his Iroquois interpreter said to let them all perish as they were good for nothing.

In Paris, it is easy to imagine a typical evening in a room full of maps and manuscripts. The two noblemen were explaining that they were willing to provide funds but they preferred not to cross the Atlantic to this unknown wilderness of ‘’savages.’’ They asked Champlain to be their emissary.

After a long talk, he told them the story he had recently entered in his journal in which he and his Indian followers, Huron and Algonquin, were fighting the Mohawks and Iroquois. The two men were fascinated when Champlain showed them his illustrations and maps and explained that with one shot of his arquebus, he killed two chiefs, and wounded a third. He fired again in a cloud of white smoke. Two French arquebusiers emerged from the trees, knelt and fired their weapons.

“When I saw them preparing to shoot arrows at us, I raised my arquebus, and aiming directly at one of the three Chiefs, two of them fell to the ground, and one of their companions received a wound of which he died afterwards. The Iroquois were greatly astonished to see two men killed so instantaneously, notwithstanding they were provided with arrow proof armor woven of cotton thread and wood.’’ These were unknown and terrible weapons and they fled.

Champlain raised his mug of beer in self-congratulation: “The place where this battle was fought is 43 degrees some minutes latitude, and I named it Lake Champlain.”

The story of the arquebus is taken from Champlain’s Expeditions (Voyages de la Nouvelle France, par le Sr. de Champlain; Parish M.DC.XXXII, Anno 1609.) The source is The Documentary History of the State of New York, by E.B O’Callaghan, M.D. Albany. Vol. III, pgs.1-24, Weed, Parsons, & Co. Public Printers, 1850.