"The Indians, they guide themselves on the current ofa stream, they take the current ofa stream, then they follow it. This littlecreek will fall into another bigger one, and theother one will fall intoanother bigger one. They follow that, andafter that, they come to know it all by heart, [...] they travel like that. "
Jean-Guy Paquin, Il est resté quelque chose de la mer, p. 19.

Illustration 34- A rabaska negotiates a rapid. Painting by Francis Anne Hopkins, Library and Archives Canada/C2774e.

We're talking about waterways here.

And when they encounter an obstacle, whether falling or fast, they go around it. They get out of the canoe and carry it on their shoulders to the next flat. If they reach the end of a lake, the bottom of a bay, they do the same, carrying it to the next waterhole. They travel this way from east to west, from north to south, yes, "they travel this way". This is how the trails were formed, the first dirt roads that natives have travelled for millennia, these overland routes that we call portage trails and that will become our roads, our streets, our snowmobile, quad bike and hiking trails.

Rivers, lakes, portages and trails have linked the peoples of our continent for trade and friendship for thousands of years, long before the fur trade - with which portages are often associated - which simply followed long-established routes.

Illustration 35 - First Nations people walked the trails carved by moose to get from one watering hole to another. The word "moose" comes from the Basque word "oreinak", and Samuel de Champlain called it "aurignac". Photo Derald Lobay, Canadian Wildlife Federation website.

Sometimes, these portage trails blend in with, or are added to, the trails carved by moose along watercourses. The moose, found across Canada, is a traditional food source for the aboriginal peoples who share its habitat. It's only natural that man and beast should cross paths. And the moose, a herbivore and strong swimmer who loves aquatic plants just as much, knows how to find the shortest, least energy-consuming route between two points of water. It's only natural that they should rub shoulders.

Let's now try to grasp what a journey meant in those ancient times. Around 1613, Champlain wrote that the Weskarinis, our Deer people, covered the distance from the Ottawa River to Nominingue in four days.

Figure 36 - Outline of the expedition led by the Chevalier de Troyes in the spring of 1686 en route to Hudson Bay. Map taken from the virtual museum of the Canadian Museum of History(www.museedelhistoire.ca/musee-virtuel-de-la-nouvelle-france/les-explorateurs/pierre-de-troyes-1686/ ).

In 1686, the Le Moyne brothers, Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, Jacques and Paul took part in an expedition against the English trading posts on Hudson Bay: 1,200 km on snowshoes, sledges and canoes, which they crossed between April and June. There will be around a hundred of them - voyageurs, soldiers and native guides. The journey took them up the Ottawa River to Lake Témiscamingue, then through a series of lakes and rivers requiring grueling portages, to reach the south coast of James Bay 85 days later. To think they hadn't yet reached Hudson Bay!

Figure 37 - Illustration showing the "column of one hundred men" taking part in the expedition to Hudson Bay in 1686. Société d'histoire de Rouyn-Noranda, Passage of the Chevalier de Rroyes expedition in the Rouyn-Noranda region, May 30, 1686.