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After having traded at Three Rivers, de Caën visited Quebec, the Island of Orleans, and the vicinity of Cape Tourmente and the neighbouring islands. He was now the proprietor of these lands, having received them as a gift from the Duke of Montmorency. Champlain now resolved to recross the ocean, and to take with him his young wife, who had spent four years in Quebec.
Hugging the north shore closely we draw in under towering Cap Tourmente, fir-clad, rising nearly two thousand feet above us; a mighty obstacle it has always been to communication by land on this side of the river. Soon comes a great cleft in the mountains, and before us is Baie St. Paul, opening up a wide vista to the interior. We are getting into the Malbaie country for Isle aux Coudres, an island some six miles long, opposite Baie St. Paul, was formerly linked with Malbaie under one missionary priest. The north shore continues high and rugged. After passing Les Eboulements, a picturesque village, far above us on the mountain side, we round Cap aux Oies, in English, unromantically, Goose Cape, and, far in front, lies a great headland, sloping down to the river in bold curves. On this side of the headland we can see nestling in under the cliff what, in the distance, seems only a tiny quay. It is the wharf of Malbaie. The open water beyond it, stretching across to Cap
Here he hoisted the French flag at the masthead, and the pilots, believing the ships to be a French squadron, which had eluded the watch of the English, came off in their boats, and were all taken prisoners, and forced, under pain of death, to take the English vessels safely up. The first difficulty of the passage was at Cape Tourmente, where the channel describes a complete zigzag.
I made a meal there, talking to all my companions left and right in a new speech of my own, which was made up, as it were, of the essence of all the Latin tongues, saying 'Ha! Si jo a traversa li montagna no erat facile! Nenni! II san Gottardo? Nil est! pooh! poco! Ma hesterna jo ha voulu traversar in Val Bavona, e credi non ritornar, namfredo, fredo erat in alto! La tourmente ma prise...
Lewis Kirke had been careful to seize the cattle pastured at Cap Tourmente and to destroy the crops. When winter came, there were eighty mouths to feed on a scant diet of peas and maize, imperfectly ground, with a reserve supply of twelve hundred eels. Towards spring anything was welcome, and the roots of Solomon's seal were esteemed a feast.
At Tadoussac they learned that at Cap Tourmente, thirty miles below Quebec, there was a small farm from which the garrison of Quebec drew supplies; and, as a first effort to 'root out' the French, David Kirke decided to loot and destroy this supply-post. A number of his crew went in a fishing-boat, took the place by surprise, captured its guard, plundered it, and killed the cattle.
Already the British had done what the French had thought impossible. Without pilots they had steered their ships through treacherous channels in the river and through the dangerous "Traverse" near Cap Tourmente.
Night after night the garrison of Quebec could see the light of burning houses as far down as the mountain of Cape Tourmente. Near St. Joachim there was a severe skirmish, followed by atrocious cruelties.
Lawrence attained a much higher development than is found in Fraser's crude plan. Philippe Aubert de Gaspé tells how the people on the south shore could read what had happened on the north shore from Cap Tourmente to Malbaie. On St. John's eve, December 26th, the season of Christmas festivities, there was a general illumination.
For the past two years Champlain had established a farm for raising cattle at the foot of Cape Tourmente. Some farm buildings and dwellings for the men were erected there, and Champlain visited the place every summer to see that the work was properly carried on. The Récollets had a chapel there in which they said mass from time to time.
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