The duty continues its journey back to the sources of French America, focusing on the exploration of Quebec newspapers and archives. To broaden our horizons, we will travel from the northern confines of the Hudson to the sunny dreams of Florida, while tracing the thread of a shared history. Today, Pehr Kalm’s tour in Canada.
It was 27 degrees Celsius in Montreal on July 24, 1749. The rays of the sun warmed the city dwellers who, on this Thursday, jostled on the shore to see the boat of botanist Pehr Kalm and his servant Lars Jungström. “These people learned that Swedes, a kind of people they had heard of before but never seen, would arrive that day,” Kalm wrote in his travel diary, one of the most important documents rich to understand the society where he will live for some time.
The 33-year-old botanist is on assignment for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is responsible for collecting specimens of the flora canadensis and seeks, among other things, plants that could thrive for the benefit of the Scandinavian world. Before deciding on North America, the Academy first considered sending its emissary to Iceland, Greenland and even South Africa. She even considered the terms of an expedition to China that would go through Muscovy and Mongolia.
Upon setting foot in Montreal, Pehr Kalm discovered a new society rooted in the St. Lawrence Valley. He was struck by the welcome reserved for him by the colonial authorities. “Between the extreme politeness I have enjoyed here and that of the English provinces, there is all the difference that separates heaven from earth, white from black. This warmth is not just ceremonial: “Common people in Canada are more civilized and resourceful than anywhere else in the world I’ve been to. You can go anywhere in the homes of peasants and talk to them, men and women. We are struck by their savoir-vivre and by the courteous responses we receive on all subjects. »
Otherness
The Swede was amazed by the look of the Canadian women, who dressed “quite conspicuously, to the point that a servant is as well dressed as a young lady.” This sartorial audacity shakes this son of a Lutheran pastor, for whom clothing must condition a marked social belonging. Does he shiver in front of so much postage? In any case, he notes the dress of the ladies: “They wear a little white skirt, usually quite short and which reveals about half of the lower leg, if not more. »
The theme of superficiality often comes up in Kalm’s pen; he thus reveals his own relationship to the world, that of the society that forged him. The ladies, again, are more than once singled out in his diary: “There is nothing to which the women here apply themselves more than to doing their hair and curling their heads. Hair should be styled and powdered every day, even if you never have to walk out the door. When they’re done with their headdresses, Canadian women spend long moments humming ditties evoking “heart” or “love.” These are voluble, and their tongue “walks like the wings of the swallow, if not faster.”
Kalm found out the hard way that there is a country fad and that in societies, being different often signals you for ridicule, if only when walking the streets. This shortcoming is all the more laughable as Canadian women are themselves several months out of step with the fashion of the metropolis. “If it happened that the very latest fashion from Paris could be shipped here in a single day and these ladies here did not know that it was she who had just arrived from France and Paris, they would not care and would regard it as completely ridiculous, because it would not conform to their own fashion. »
Frontier
The War of the Austrian Succession, which pitted France against Great Britain in particular, had just ended when Pehr Kalm entered Canada via the Hudson Valley and Lake Champlain in the summer of 1749. Evidenced by the charred remains of farmhouses and stake forts that are still visible in the heart of the forest wilderness separating the colonial empires.
The Swede fears an attack, the news of peace having escaped the native allies of France. “We find throughout the day that the grass has been trodden on one side of the river and that people have been walking there recently,” he wrote with a shaky hand. “To increase our concern, in these deserted places, we hear their dogs barking all night long in different places in the forest, but quite far from us. »
Kalm and his companions are sweating profusely in the midst of forests infested with black flies. “It starts to get as hot as on the upper level of our sauna, notes the Swede. I have never felt such heat and it is difficult to breathe. »
The fresh air of Lake Champlain finally relieves the traveler. We are at the gates of Canada, defended by Fort Saint-Frédéric, 200 kilometers south of Montreal. Kalm uses his time at this outpost to write down his observations of rattlesnakes and how to exterminate them by releasing ravenous pigs into the wild. There he meets an experienced soldier who says he saw the carcass of an elephant in a swamp in the Illinois country a few years ago. “It is said to be huge and the whole trunk can be seen distinctly, although it is now rotten. The animal has thick tusks, half an ell long and snow-white in color. The Natives of the Illinois region are lost in conjecture about the remains of this mammoth. “When asked what they thought it represented, they replied that it must be the master of all beavers. »
Laurentian ecumene
In August 1749, the botanist went from Montreal to Quebec, with his herbal basket under his arm. Going down the St. Lawrence, the Canadian rowers in his boat engage in “all sorts of nonsense” as soon as they see an inhabitant within earshot on the coast. “They tell each other the wrong things as much as possible. “These bon vivants swell over more than 250 kilometres. “There’s like fire in each of their hair”, observes a Kalm amazed by the overflowing energy of this emerging people.
Upon his arrival in Quebec, the botanist was received with great pomp by the Marquis de La Galissonnière, the governor of New France. The statesman, passionate about natural history, is the antithesis of Bishop Pontbriand, who is only a “coarse peasant without good manners”.
The Swedish tourist admires the architectural attractions of this city of 8000 inhabitants, which will be razed 10 years later by the British bombs of General Wolfe.
At the governor’s table, Kalm made the acquaintance of a notable who said he had seen “large stone columns, erected and leaning against each other” in a forest 3600 kilometers west of Quebec. These monoliths “appeared to have been made by human hands”. The Swede is especially intrigued by a stone “covered with inscriptions reminiscent of the Tartar language” which was found at the beginning of the decade in the same area. This mysterious tablet, embedded in a pillar, was sent to the Minister of Marine, Maurepas. “We think it should always be kept in his cabinet. »
Pehr Kalm projects in stone his fantasy of a European civilization that would have preceded or rubbed shoulders with the aboriginal peoples of the continent. This hope will crumble during his return trip by Lake Champlain, at the sight of rocks bearing “a host of strange characters” resulting simply from natural erosion. “If one took one of these rocks and carried it a little further into the interior of the forest, on some small rise, a European passing by might believe it to be a tomb and that the characters engraved in the stone represent an inscription in an unknown foreign language, that which would have been used by a people who came there in ancient times. »
The visitor returned to the Hudson frontier in October 1749, after having spent 130 days in New France.
If he no longer fears rattlesnakes, he retains his initial apprehensions towards Aboriginal people, as he expresses on the sidelines of a campfire to his Canadian guides responsible for bringing her back to British territory. His companions in the country take advantage of the darkness to tell their best anecdotes of the last war. Tales of native “cruelties” follow one another as creaks are heard in the woods… “Almost all get up to see who’s coming, but we hear no more,” writes Kalm with a shudder. “You notice then that we have talked about how to scalp and that we could suffer the same fate before we realize it. Those long autumn nights are truly awful when you’re out in the wild and lonely open spaces, observes the scientist. May god be with us ! »