In Quebec City, in the middle of the summer of 1972, a curious boat 24 meters long, very colorful, was launched in the basin of Cartier-Brébeuf Park. This is the replica of the great erminethe flagship of Jacques Cartier, aboard which the famous navigator sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1535.
The nave looks great, with its Venetian hull and its imposing masts. Its mooring at the confluence of the Saint-Charles and Lairet rivers, however, begins with a monumental hiccup: just launched on the pond, the vessel tilts on its side, then sinks gently in front of an audience of journalists gathered for the event.
“It was going badly! exclaims historian Gilles Gallichan, thinking back to this ship that left the Davie shipyard in Lévis in 1966. The federal government of Lester B. Pearson swallowed up the equivalent of 2.4 million dollars in today. Driven by the national craze for the figures of “discoverers”, this boat was to illustrate the heroic beginnings of Canada at the Universal Exhibition in Montreal the following year. The approximate replica, however, pales in comparison to the international pavilions that call for modernity.
The Expo ended, the great ermine remained anchored at La Ronde until the end of 1970. She was then brought down the St. Lawrence, pulled by a powerful tug. In December 1971, the nave was loaded onto a flatbed truck which took it through the streets of the working-class district of Limoilou. It ends its course the following summer in the brand new basin of the Cartier-Brébeuf national historic site, in Quebec.
The seven-hectare urban park, whose 50th anniversary is being celebratedand anniversary this year, aims to commemorate the presumed site where Jacques Cartier intentionally beached his ships during his wintering in 1535. In addition to the BigErminethe flotilla of the explorer from Saint-Malo includes two boats of lesser tonnage: the Little Stoat and theswivel. On the spot, however, there is nothing left of the passage of the expedition financed by King François 1er.
Little Stoat
The haven chosen by Cartier for its ships is located near the Iroquoian village of Stadacona. The 44-year-old navigator has a complex relationship with the Aboriginals of the Quebec region, whom he met the previous summer, during a stopover in Gaspé. Abusing the trust of his hosts, the Malouin then ordered the capture of the two sons of Chief Donnacona to present them to the King of France. Their return to Canada in 1535 did not lessen the initial unease.
Fearing an attack, the French erected a palisade within arquebus range of their ships anchored in the Lairet River. If it protects against arrows, the enclosure can do nothing against scurvy, which affects almost all of the 110 men of the expedition during the winter. The sick are saved in extremis by annedda, an indigenous remedy made from white cedar, which also relieves the symptoms of the pox. The scourge nevertheless carried off a quarter of the crew, forcing Cartier to abandon one of his ships on the spot, for lack of sailors capable of bringing it back to France.
At the beginning of the XVIIand century, when Samuel de Champlain landed at the foot of Cap Diamant, the wreckage of Jacques Cartier’s ship seemed to have disappeared. However, the founder of Quebec notes the presence of the remains of his predecessor’s fort a little over three kilometers from his home. ” There is still […] remains as of a chimney, of which the foundation has been found, and the appearance of having had ditches around their dwelling which was small, writes Champlain. We also found large pieces of squared, worm-eaten timber, and some three or four cannonballs. »
Debris from a wreck associated with the Little Stoat de Cartier were found in 1843, at the mouth of the Saint-Michel stream, 500 meters upstream from the Lairet river. The artifacts removed from the mud are then divided into two batches. The first took its way to the Parliament of the Côte de la Montagne, in Quebec, where they disappeared in a fire in 1854. The second batch was sent to a committee of experts in Saint-Malo, which confirmed the age of the ship.
Is this really Cartier’s boat? The navigator’s biographer, Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne, is skeptical. In 1896, during his honeymoon in Europe, this former research assistant to the American historian Francis Parkman stopped in Saint-Malo. At the sight of the 40 wooden and iron elements of the Little Stoat on display at City Hall, the Canadian scholar is not at all convinced. “To be frank, I had decided in advance not to let myself be convinced,” he wrote. For Dionne, the historians of 1843 were not equipped to identify the wreck, not even François-Xavier Garneau. Gilles Gallichan shares the analysis of his distant predecessor: “It’s a bit like the Holy Shroud or the piece of the true cross of Jesus. We want to believe in it so much that it becomes a real relic. »
The Saint-Malo History Museum has returned The duty to the work of Dionne when he was questioned about the age of the artefacts from the wreckage of the Saint-Michel stream. The dendrochronological analysis of the remains did not yield convincing results, explains the chief curator of the museum, Philippe Petout, in an exchange of emails. “These elements do indeed come from a wreck, but perhaps not as old as has been said. Nevertheless, they bear witness to the “resumption of ‘cultural’ relations between Cartier’s native country and Canada”.
Pilgrimage
In 1886, in a national outpouring in favor of Cartier, the site of his first wintering in Canada was acquired by the Cercle catholique de Québec. A steel cross ten meters high was erected there the following year to recall the original cross planted by the navigator in 1536. It was in its shadow that Chief Donnacona was kidnapped and then taken to France to promote the emergence of its rival Agona. Blessed by Pope John Paul II during his 1984 tour, the Catholic Circle’s cross remained in place until it was removed in 2018. The monument’s advanced corrosion no longer allowed it to “resist environmental forces”, explains the Parks Canada spokesperson Kimberly Labar.
The base of the demolished cross is now covered with a simple plywood. It neighbors another, more durable monument, honoring both the explorer Cartier and the Jesuit Jean de Brébeuf. It was during his inauguration, on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in 1889, that Prime Minister Honoré Mercier launched his famous call for the union of French Canadians: “Let’s stop our fratricidal struggles, let’s unite!” For the liberal politician, this granite monument must become a place of patriotic pilgrimage.
Despite Mercier’s appeal, the area around the Lairet River remained on the sidelines of tourist circuits until its transformation at the end of the 1960s. “It was a small park that smelled bad,” explains Gilles Gallichan, whose the olfactory memory has remained impregnated by the cesspool of the Saint-Charles River. “There was all kinds of rubbish, oils, it was not attractive at all. The high tide fortunately covered the things that should not be seen, ”adds this former librarian of the National Assembly, thinking back to the carcasses of animals thrown directly into the river.
Acquired by the federal government in 1957, the embryo of the park developed by the Catholic Circle was enlarged, then redeveloped in depth to accommodate the replica of the great ermine in 1972. This vessel enjoyed a certain popularity until its demolition in 2001, due to lack of maintenance. The Iroquoian longhouse erected nearby in the 1980s suffered the same fate in 2007. The center of the park is now occupied by a minimalist monument symbolizing the hull of a ship.
The archaeological potential of Cartier-Brébeuf National Historic Site is low. And for good reason: most of the subsoil was removed by brickyards, before being backfilled with land from a dump at the beginning of the 20th century.and century. This mixing of the soils obviously got the better of the fort and the common grave containing Cartier’s 25 companions in misfortune. It is different from the promontory of the Cap-Rouge River, where the navigator founded an ephemeral colony under the orders of Roberval during his last voyage in 1541. More than 6000 artefacts have been extracted from this archaeological site, which is today today threatened by the acidity of the soil and the voracity of marclods. However, the Quebec government does not intend to complete the excavations, which were interrupted in 2010.