Champlain's Dream Ends

Taken from Montreal Rampage.com

Well, I finally finished Champlain's Dream. It was a very complete account, as far as I can tell, of the founding of New France. The latter half of the book was involved with Champlain's efforts to keep the new colonies going once they were established, part of which meant to navigate the often turbulent waters of French politics at the time, and to fend off the encroachments of the English who wished to take advantage of the resources the French territories had to offer.

Another change affecting New France was that the English as well as some of the French entrepreneurs were not interested in maintaining good relations with the native inhabitants and in fact were disrupting the patiently constructed inter-cultural affiliation that Champlain and his supporters believed was essential to the success of their colonial project. Selling alcohol and firearms to the Indians was lucrative for the traders but disastrous to the Indians. Moreover, the diseases that came along with each new wave of settlers were also devastating to the various groups of indigenous people who contracted them.

It's a pity that Champlain died, somewhat unexpectedly, at the time he did, in 1635. Had he lived a few more years he might have been able to see Quebec through the transitional period between kings, kept the English from taking Maine and other French held territory, and kept relations with and among the Indians peaceful. It's hard to say, however, whether that arrangement would have lasted much longer anyway with all the colonists' arriving and filling up the area with their farms and towns. Eventually, the Indians would have seemed to be encroaching rather than the other way around.

All in all, I enjoyed learning about this period in history, especially as it relates to my own family's history. I realized how little I knew about the founding of New France, and now appreciate the complexity of the events of the early years of the seventeenth century and the extraordinary character of the man who was largely responsible for making it all happen.

Richard Ford
Photo by Daniel Erath

Next on my list: Canada, by Richard Ford. I've never read anything by this author before, but I'm enjoying this novel quite a bit. It takes place in the 1960s and is a kind of coming-of-age story about a teenage boy, Dell, whose parents rob a bank, are caught, and go off to prison. What results from this calamity is the subject of the rest of the story. The book is quite well written and is keeping me in suspense, waiting to find out what happens to Dell. I'll let you know in the next post, so stay tuned!