The Maritime Provinces and the Early Discoverers

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“The Maritime Provinces and the Early Discoverers” from Canada, by Wilfred Campbell, 1907.

The New World is not, like the Old, a network of historic highways; but, recently as its history of discovery dates, its shores and waters are not barren of heroic adventure, incident, and legendary charm.

Who has entered for the first time the noble Gulf of St Lawrence, and sailed inward up that vast river, with its wild and forbidding or elusive and mountainous shore-line, without feeling deeply the part it has played in the history of our race and the world?

Here came the first discoverers, from battle-worn, commerce-burdened Europe; seeking, by a sort of divine instinct, new dreams of human ideal and human effort in a virgin world. Or perchance, as some thought, they imagined they were reaching the farther shores of distant Ind or Cathay.

Whatever their dreams and knowledge, whatever their limitations, they were animated by a great spirit, alike of impulse and faith, which drew them past the superstitious fear and narrow conventions of their day to the truth and actuality which lay beyond. Those great spirits

"Feared no unknown, saw no horizon dark.
Grunted no dangers; dreamed all seas their road
To possible futures; struck no craven sail
For sloth or indolent cowardice; steered their keels
O'er crests of heaving ocean, leagues of brine;
While Hope firm kept the tiller; Faith in dreams
Saw coasts of gleaming continents looming large,
Beyond the ultimate of the sea's far rim."

Whatever may have been their special human frailty, these early discoverers were of no mean stock, of no empty courage, but were of the best influence which animated their people and their time.

"Souls too great for sloth
And impotent ease, goaded by inward pain
Of some divine, great yearning restlessness;
Which would not sit at home on servile shores,
And take the good their fathers wrought in days
Long ancient timeward; reap what others sowed:
But nobler sought to win a world their own,
Where men might build the future: rear new realms
Of human effort, forgetful of the past,
And all its ill and failure: knowing only
Immortal possibility of man."

Stripped of all its cruel, superstitious, greedy, and adventurous cloak, this was the inward spirit of early discovery at its best.

Each age is dominated by some great dream which seizes its best mind and energy. Philosophy, art, religion, science, literature, commerce, and war have each had their age. That of Columbus, Galileo, Raleigh and Gilbert, of Cabot and La Salle, was the age of human discovery.

It was not only an adventurous and restless period, but it was of a certainty a heroic one. Let those who doubt this, voyage out on the broad Atlantic, starting from Liverpool or Southampton, in one of the great ocean-liners of to-day—vast in the dock, but how incomparably small in contrast with the vastness of ocean!—and let them imagine the small, high-pooped sailing vessel which essayed this voyage for the first time, adventuring out into the unknown and far from kindly Atlantic; and they will realise the desperate undertaking of our first Canadian discoverers.

South of the noble gateway to the eastern interior of Canada, the famed St Lawrence, there lies a group of provinces of the Dominion, small in comparison with the western areas, but important as the first to be discovered, and by reason of their heroic history from that day to this. These provinces are Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the small island called Prince Edward. These were settled by the Scottish, Acadian French, and United Empire Loyalist stock; and while they are now a small proportion of the Dominion, yet they represent in their people the three dominant elements which have gone to make up the Canada of to-day.

This is a region of much sea-line, of bold, rugged shores, noble mountains, and vast sea-marshes. It is a region teeming with history and legend. Out of its confines came the beautiful story of Evangeline, the romance and tragedy of La Tour and De Monts, and the splendid failure of the Scotsman Alexander.

It has later been the theatre of the more practical, if less romantic, successes of the modern Scot and United Empire Loyalist; and is to-day most favourably known because of its mines, fisheries, harbours, its orchards, and the Canadian statesmen and thinkers which it has produced.

On a neck of land connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and on the south side of this isthmus, are the famed marshes of Tantramar, one of the great sights of Canada, and a noted haunt for sportsmen. Here the Bay of Fundy, where the tides rise higher and fall lower than anywhere else in the world, washes for miles a vast marsh-land, which at low water is an immense gleaming beach, and at high water an inland sea.

It is, next to the shores of the great inland lakes, one of the most lonesome places in the whole world; and the very sea-wind, on a summer day, is full of a desolation quite Celtic in its suggestion. Here the soul may loiter at high tide, and listen, while far out and away from

"The roar of cities and the haste of men,
Tumultuous Fundy thunders through his haze
A grief more sad than woe of poet's pen.
And wakes the sea- wolf in his craggy den.
And lifts his mists, and brims his tides afar.
To lave the shining wastes of haunted Tantramar."

The north-east point of Nova Scotia is the island of Cape Breton, with its Bras d'Or Lake, an arm of the sea, its new Campbelton, Sydney, and the famed Louisburg.

Here, it is said, first came Eric the Red and his fellow-Norsemen, discovering Markland and perchance Vinland or Vineland; and here, perchance, also, the hero of Longfellow's Skeleton in Armour may have first sighted land.

"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore.
Stretching to leeward."

Here it was that the great Cabot first came, as the discoverer of the American mainland, and touched at this eastward cape after weeks of drifting and tacking; and fear and doubt on the part of his followers. But genius is self-centred and self-sustaining. It leans only on Deity and its own indomitable spirit of resolution; and, like the fabled heroes of olden story, he was compelled to sail on, led by an impulse stronger than human fear and human doubt.

"Over the hazy distance.
Beyond the sunset's rim.
For ever and for ever
Those voices called to him.

Westward! westward! westward!
The sea sang in his head.
At morn in the busy harbour.
At nightfall on his bed.
Westward! westward! westward!

Over the line of breakers.
Out of the distance dim.
Forever the foam-white fingers
Beckoning, beckoning him."

It was the eternal call of the sea to the restless son of old Ocean; and here he came, after a long travail by storm and calm, and was the first man in history to land on these shores.

Here, after him, and later, came the Breton and Basque merchants and adventurers, De Monts and his associates, founding Port Royal and that Acadia so famed in song and story. I legend, however, has it that, centuries before this, Europe had knowledge of these coasts.

Here later adventured Sir William Alexander, a Scottish poet, who was granted by the British monarch a nobility greater than many a kingdom, and who founded a lesser peerage, extant to this day, and known as the baronetage of Nova Scotia. Thus Scotland had her part in, and gave her name to, this romantic and remote region.

The story of the discovery of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland, by the two Cabots is an interesting one. John Cabot, a Venetian merchant settled in England, by means of his adventurous spirit obtained favour with King Henry VII.; and, ambitious of doing for England what Columbus had done for Spain, Henry granted to him and to his sons a patent to sail under the flag of England on an adventure of discovery of new lands.

Cabot, his son Sebastian, and a crew of eighteen men sailed from Bristol and beat west for fifty days, sighting land on St John's Day, the 24th of June 1497. This land was the northern shore of Cape Breton. Here Cabot erected a large cross with the standards of England and Venice, and called the land Prima Terra Vista. Cabot was thus the pioneer of English discovery and colonisation in Canada, and the first known founder of the Maritime Provinces.

Britain having shown the way, Portugal and France sent out discoverers, and the greatest of these was Cartier, who discovered the St Lawrence and claimed Canada for the French in 1534.

That gifted Celtic-Canadian statesman and poet, D'Arcy McGee, has fittingly told in heroic verse of the departure of Cartier from St Malo:

"In the seaport of St Malo 'twas a smiling mom in May
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed away.

In the crowded old cathedral all the town were on their knees,
For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas:

And every autumn blast that swept o'er pinnacle and pier
Filled manly hearts with sorrow and gentle hearts with fear.

But the earth is as the future; it hath its hidden side,
And the captain of St Malo was rejoicing in his pride.

In the forests of the north, while his townsmen mourned his loss.
He was rearing on Mount Royal the fleur-de-lis and cross."

Then the spirited ballad describes his return, and his pictures of the wonders of the new world; as, for instance, when

"He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
Its freshness for a hundred leagues to ocean's briny wave."

While this great adventurer is chiefly famous as the discoverer of the St Lawrence and Quebec, he came at first to Acadia, and in 1541 fortified Cape Breton.

The next explorer to arrive was Jean François de la Roque, seigneur de Roberval, appointed by the king of France to be lieutenant of Canada and the lands adjacent.

We next come to the period of Queen Elizabeth, and the hero, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a man of great physical stature and prowess, and noted as a scholar and a patriot. He set sail in 1583 with four vessels, carrying two hundred and fifty emigrants, the first emigration expedition from Britain to Canada. Arriving at Newfoundland, he took possession in the name of the virgin queen. But his emigrants proved a sad failure, by reason of their discontent and lawlessness; and it is said that the governor found it necessary to crop the ears of the unruly in order to maintain his authority. There is no doubt that, in all early colonies, the failure was owing to the desperate character of the colonists, who were for the most part restless malcontents who could not be satisfied at home or anywhere else, and who mistook licence for freedom.

Sir Humphrey, having raised a pillar carrying the royal arms of England, sailed in his ship, the Squirrel, a vessel of only ten tons burden—remarkably small in comparison with the Allan liner, the Virginian, of twelve thousand tons burden—and was swamped in a great storm.

The historical account says:—

"When the wind had abated and the vessels were near enough, the Admiral was seen, constantly seated in the stern, with a book in his hand. On the 9th of September he was heard by the people of the Hind to say: 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land.' In the following night the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared. Nothing more was seen or heard of the great Admiral."

Longfellow has the following beautiful picture of his heroic death:—

"Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed.
Three days or more, seaward he bore,
Then, alas, the land wind failed.
Alas, the land wind failed.
And ice-cold grew the night.
And never more on sea or shore
Should Sir Humphrey see the light."

And so ended disastrously the first practical attempt at British colonisation of the new world.

Another picturesque attempt at the colonisation of Acadia was that of Sable Island. Henry IV. of France was a great patron of maritime adventure and enterprise, and he sent the Marquis de la Roche as lieutenant of Acadia, who took out a cargo of convicts and left them on that barren spot where nothing grew. Here they lingered in great misery for seven years, subsisting on seals and other fish, until only twelve remained to return to France, where they were pardoned by the king, who was astonished at their long beards and sealskin garments, and ordered them to be paid a gratuity of fifty crowns each.

Here in turn came Frank and Scot, each setting foot, and each in turn being ousted by his rival. The most famous theatre of this struggle for race dominance was the beautiful and now historical Annapolis Valley. Seen in fine weather, it is one of the fairest regions in all the world. It is now a country of mountain and valley dotted over with beautiful farms and famous orchards. Poutrincourt and his adventurers found it as pleasing in their day, when sailing along the south coast of Fundy, called by them La Baye François, they discovered what is now the Gut of Digby, and, steering in, found the splendid basin surrounded by hills and valleys, and streams of fresh water that ran down to the level wooded lands that rimmed the shore.

Here, in this newer Eden, he founded the famous Port Royal, amid its grassy meadows, its numerous streams, its cascades tumbling from the hills, and its forest-clad mountains.

But this beautiful spot was not long destined to remain French. Soon it was to be the stronghold of an organisation of Scottish baronets headed by the noted Sir William Alexander, who was created Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada; and long after the place was called Annapolis in honour of Queen Anne.

It is not the province of this work to go into the details of history, but the present result of all his adventure and struggle is shown in a people largely Scottish and United Empire Loyalist, with a few settlements of the original Acadian French still remaining.

The Nova Scotian is a Canadian, but he is also a type by himself, by reason of his parent stock, his experience, and his peculiar environment. The Acadian people are much as they were in the days of the tragedy of Evangeline. They are a simple, primitive folk of the old-time Breton type, living largely to themselves, and apart from the progress and strenuous effort around them.

The quaint and romantic village of Grand Pré is their most representative locality, and the one chiefly associated with their dispersion by Lawrence. The visitor to their villages and farm-lands will find very little difference in their character and manner of life from that depicted in Longfellow's beautiful Evangeline.

"In the Acadian land on the shores of the basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dykes, that the hands of the farmer had raised with labour incessant.
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the floodgates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows."

"Away to the northward,
Blomidon rose, and the forests of old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents."

Now, as then, will be found the conditions of this happy, contented, quaintly religious people, living apart in their own manner, away from the strenuous, restless, more masterful people about them.

It is not to be supposed that they have not changed somewhat, where change is eternal in all peoples.

The region first called Acadia, or, according to the Indians of Champlain's time, "the place of plenty," abounding in fish, moose, caribou, partridge, and many fur-bearing animals, and afterwards called Nova Scotia, was finally divided into three provinces. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, settlements of Scots from the old world located themselves on different parts of the coast.

These were followed by a great influx of loyalists who came from the south at the time of the American Revolution. The chief settlements were at Halifax and St John; but others were scattered throughout the country.

These new-comers, while they helped to save the country for Britain, brought with them just a touch of the Yankee atmosphere, which permeates the country to this day. Upper Canada, now Ontario, had a similar invasion; but the element from the old country was stronger than that in the Maritime Provinces, so that there is a difference in the characteristics of the two peoples. In Ontario, it cannot be said that the United Empire Loyalist dominated as he did in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The result has been that the ruling class in the Maritime Provinces, when not Scotch, has been largely U.E. Loyalist; whereas in Ontario this element has not forced itself to the front to the same extent. Such names as Howe, Wilmot, Tupper, and Borden give a slight idea of the many U.E. Loyalist families which have produced men of prominence.

The Maritime Province men as a class are more akin to the New Englander in their characteristics.

They are simpler in their lives than the people of the other provinces, and take an unusual part in the public life of the Dominion. They are intellectual and energetic quite to the extent of restlessness. They have all the strong qualities and weaknesses of maritime folk. They know more of the world than do inland people. But they are unsettled and ambitious, and the young men rarely stay at home. The result has been that some of the ablest Nova Scotians dwell in Boston and other American cities.

Maritime Canada has suffered much from this drain of her best blood, but some day the reaction will come and the tide turn the other way. Meanwhile this close intercourse with the land to the south has been not altogether for the good of our people in that part of Canada.

Campbell, Wilfred. Canada. A. & C. Black, 1907.

Wilfred Campbell

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