Fullfilling a Dream

Picture yourself a 17 year old peasant in seventeenth century France. Your country is a good place to live. The soil is rich and the climate is mild. Most years, your family grows enough food to feed themselves and their livestock plus harvest a little surplus that can be sold to buy a few extras. All of your kin reside nearby. The church provides you with order, community and purpose.

But, you hate it here. . . life is too predictable. Or perhaps you need to escape -- from a crime, a terrible situation, or a tyrannical parent.

Whatever the reason might be, impulsively, one day, you scratch your mark on a document, agreeing to work for three years in New France. There, in that new world, you hope to experience many adventures, discover new lands, amass a fortune in furs, become a prosperous merchant or ship owner.

Along with several other young men hired in France, you are shipped to the lands of St Anne d’Beaupres, about a dozen leagues from Quebec City. Here you will fulfill the terms of your contract, clearing new land, planting and harvesting crops for your employer, the Catholic church.

Your employer paid an advance to you in France as well as your passage on a small sailing ship. At the end of your contract you are guaranteed return passage at your employers’ expense.

Most of the hired men gladly return to France. It is understandable. Quebec winters were considerably colder in the Seventeenth century. Clearing land of trees, day-after-day was very hard work and very boring. New France was a dangerous place. . . . .and there were few French women.

Why would anyone want to stay?

But over the years, ten thousand men and women did stay, married and had large families. They cut down acres of trees each year, planted crops and orchards, raised livestock, built log cabin homes and barns and churches.

Many young men also slipped away, became voyageurs, paddling birch-bark canoes, loaded with merchandise, deep into the interior of the country.

Perhaps our young man from France fulfilled his dreams of adventure on the Great Lakes and along the river highways of North America?

Sailing to New France

400 years ago, the French, English, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese claimed land and founded colonies in the New World. These colonies required fresh shipments of settlers, farmers, tradesmen, soldiers, priests, doctors, blacksmiths, gunsmiths and governors as well as food, seeds, livestock and manufactured products each year.
The settlers also needed a market for the goods they grew, hunted, fished or made to earn money that offset the cost of products they needed. Their mother-countries provided a market for New World products.
Spain sent Armadas of treasure ships to transport Inca and Peruvian gold and silver home. England purchased hogsheads of valuable tobacco from Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas. France imported bundles of precious animal skins. Fishermen from many Western European countries carried ship-loads of salted and dried Cod fish caught off the Grand Banks.
The sailing ship was the only transportation to the Americas. Getting back and forth to the New World was not simply hoisting a few sail and steering a ship as it was pushed by the wind and water across 1200 leagues of Atlantic waters.
Prior to embarking on a New World voyage, everything was removed from the ship. The ship was then floated into very shallow water and, using ropes and pulleys, tipped (careened) on its' side. Seaweed and barnacles were scraped from the bottom of the vessel, rotted wood replaced and joints filled with oakum and tar. When one side was done, the boat was rolled on its' other side and the laborious task repeated. Generally this took three or four weeks, depending on the size and condition of the ship and the number of workers.
When the ship was refloated, the ballast, which consisted of many wooden barrels filled with stone, were carefully placed in the bottom of the ship. It was important where the ballast was placed, as this heavy weight counterbalanced the wind-filled sails, affected sailing and prevented the ship from capsizing.
Next the ship was towed to a pier where its' masts, spars, cables, rigging and sails where inspected, repaired and replaced if necessary, adjusted, tarred or painted.
Lastly, the ships' crew loaded provisions, barrels of water, munitions, cargo and any passengers.
The ships crew slept in canvas hammocks strung below deck. They slept fully-clothed, ready in an instant to respond to any emergency. Their food consisted of soups and stews, biscuits (hardtack) and water diluted wine. The officers ate better and slept in small, narrow bunks.
The ships' company was divided into two crews. . . the starboard crew and the port crew. While at sea, one crew worked a four hour shift while the other crew rested.
Passengers were stuffed below decks in confined spaces where bunks were stacked three high. As there was no privacy, everyone slept fully clothed. The North Atlantic can be a very stormy place, sometimes with gale force winds and waves of twenty, thirty feet and more. In these conditions, everyone and everything became wet with no means of drying out. There were no fires or candles allowed below decks. As a storm raged topside, the passengers and some of the crew were tossed about in a pitch black space with very low ceilings (around 5 to 5 1/2 feet). There were no sanitary facilities other than chamber pots. Bathing was not common. Sailors had few clothes or the means to wash them. Navigation was difficult as most equipment required the observation of stars or the sun and the horizon to establish latitude and longitude. Travel speed was estimated by use of a long rope tied to an oak board. The rope had a knot tied at every 47.65 feet. The number of knots played out in 30 seconds made it possible to measure the leagues sailed in an hour.
In addition, storms, fog, icebergs, incorrect charts, pirates, enemy gun ships and other mishaps took their toll on the merchant ships.
If all went well, a voyage from the coast of France ended at Quebec city in about 70 days. The trip home could be much faster (as little as 33 days) because of the prevailing strong westerly winds.
I’m sure most said a silent prayer of thanks when they safely docked!