Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 3

The French in Gaspé, 1534 to 1760

by David Lee

Part I: The Background

History and Geography in Gaspé

"Gaspé is a country full of mountains, woods and rock," wrote Father Chrétien LeClercq in 1691.¹ The peninsula is dominated by a wild, mountainous topography which, although sloping more gently towards the sea on the southern side, is no less heavily forested there. In the French regime the mountains were called "les Monts Notre-Dame," noticed by Cartier in 1535 but first mentioned by name by Jean Alfonse in 1542.² These mountains, rising as high as 4,100 feet, are now also known as the Shickshocks. As in the English seaboard colonies, this branch of the Appalachians confined European settlement for a long time to the coasts of the peninsula. On the northern coast, Europeans sought out the narrow, postglacial marine terraces which are occasionally found between the sea and the mountains. On the eastern and southern coasts, the mountains slope down to the sea more gently allowing a broader choice of suitable land for settlement.

Terraces, beaches and gentle slopes were necessary for settlement and fish drying but other features, such as good harbours, were also necessary. The only good harbour was in the Bay of Gaspé where scores of ships of any size could anchor sheltered by high land on two sides. Ships bound for the St. Lawrence often sought out the Bay of Gaspé for fresh water and refuge from storms after a long Atlantic crossing. But even the Bay of Gaspé had its bad points: to leave the bay, ships often had to wait for long periods for favourable winds,³ and in spring it was frequently choked with ice for long periods. Other harbours along the coast were formed by lagoons or barachois at the ends of rivers. The sandbars which formed such lagoon harbours as Matane and Pabos were naturally lower-lying than the surrounding cliffs of the Bay of Gaspé but at the same time allowed only small vessels to enter even at high tide. Fishing at these places was usually carried on in small chaloupes owned by local resident fishermen or by French fishermen who had carried them on board ship from Europe. In the latter case, the larger ships would anchor unprotected in the deep water off shore. This was the case at îles Percé and Bonaventure where there was no natural harbour even for chaloupes.⁴ Here chaloupes were simply drawn up on the beach. The best beaches or graves for drying fish consist of shingly stones which allow air to move freely under and over the cod as they lie on the rough rocks. If the beach were more sandy than shingly, or in a harbour too protected from the wind, it was necessary to construct flakes (vignaux) on which the cod would be placed to dry.

Cod are caught in shallow water known as "banks" extending from Labrador to Cape Cod; they range from 5 to 10 pounds on the coastal or near-coastal banks and up to 200 pounds on the larger banks. Cod feed principally on herring and capelin and in spring they follow these fish as they migrate from deep water to the banks where they spawn in summer. Rich in protein, they have been a staple for Europeans for centuries.

There were four major fishing banks which Gaspé fishermen worked. Only one of these is directly off the Gaspé coast but the others are not far away. The only coastal bank is actually a shallow extension of the mainland: today it is called Le Banc des Americains and is an underwater extension of Cape Gaspé, Pointe Saint-Pierre, Cap-d'Espoir and the îles Percé and Bonaventure protuberance. South of this is Le Banc de Miscou which is a similar extension of the low-lying Shippegan-Miscou peninsula stretching north from New Brunswick towards Gaspé. Sitting offshore in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is the famous Banc de l'Orphelin. It is a shallow platform, only about 30 fathoms deep, raised above the ocean floor and rich in cod. On the north coast, the shallow underwater terrace where cod can be found is very narrow. Gaspé fishermen did fish these waters but also frequented a bank which lies off the west and northwest coasts of Anticosti Island.

The climate of Gaspé is more akin to that of the St. Lawrence Valley than to those of Acadia or Newfoundland. Precipitation, for example, is evenly distributed throughout the year. Winters are perhaps slightly tempered by Gaspé's maritime location but they are still extremely long, snow often lasting six months; and there is little difference in winter on the south shore even though it is washed by the waters of the Bay of Chaleurs. Cartier, who named the bay, visited it in July when, it is true, the south shore is warmer. It is warmer in spring, too, for the north coast suffers from a cold, damp northeast wind from April to June.⁵

The peculiar geography of the peninsula contributed to Gaspé's distinctive history. The difficult terrain retarded agriculture, restricted fur trading and prevented the search for minerals. The land is so wild that in 1661, when the Iroquois threat was particularly strong, some Indians friendly to the French moved to the Matane area: they felt that this country was so "ill-favoured and forbidding" that if they did not starve, at least the Iroquois would never find them.⁶ There was very little communication by land. Although Indians apparently used an overland route by the rivers Restigouche, Matapédia and Matane⁷ there is no indication that Europeans ever used it. The English did march a military force along the shore from Gaspé Bay to Mont-Louis in 1758, but only with great difficulty, and they returned in captured sloops. It is only natural that communication in Gaspé should be almost exclusively by water. There were few dangerous shoals so Gaspésians coasted the shores in their chaloupes without difficulty.

So Gaspé was naturally oriented towards the sea and especially towards fishing. Although ice conditions along the coast prevented a winter fishery such as New England enjoyed, Gaspé did possess other requisites for a successful fishery. Cod could be caught close to shore and this was an advantage not only for its convenience but also because coastal cod was smaller and thus better for drying than, for example, the cod of the Grand Banks. And it was in dried cod that Gaspé specialized. Even when dried, however, cod still had to be speedily delivered to European markets before it spoiled. Gaspé was farther from France than the Grand Banks but it made little difference; the voyage home generally took little more than a month. Owing to the prevailing westerly winds in the Atlantic, this is two to three times as fast as the France-to-Gaspé trip.⁸

2 The roadstead of Ile Percé, probably 1686. Note the ships and chaloupes in the water and the stages along the shore where the cod were cleaned and salted. Note also the flakes where the cod were dried and the dwellings, churches and gardens of the fishermen. (Original in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.)

Geography also affected the choice of places of settlement in Gaspé. When selecting sites to settle, the French had to choose the most favourable combination of terraces, beaches and gentle slopes; proximity to fishing grounds; good harbours; protection from attack by the English; length of fishing season; fur trade potential, and agricultural potential. Enough terraces and gentle slopes for settlement were not difficult to find on any of the coasts but suitable beaches for drying fish were not abundant. Nevertheless, the French bore with the disadvantages of limited beach space and no harbour at Percé or Bonaventure in order to exploit the excellent fishing there. Some Percé fishermen even took their fish to dry on the beaches of Gaspé Bay.⁹ After the English wiped the French out of the Percé area in 1690, defence was considered more important than fish resources so the focus of the Gaspé fisheries shifted northward to Gaspé Bay. This bay had excellent defensive possibilities, but they were never fulfilled nor even begun. However, it had extensive beaches and the best harbour in Gaspé; here French fishermen could at least hide from predatory English warships. Its weakness was that chaloupes had to go much farther to fish. The potential for agriculture as a supplement to fisheries income was more favourable on the south coast but this coast was exposed to attack and its harbours and fishing grounds were poor. Little fishing was done here. The north coast had a more favourable potential for trade in furs to supplement the fisheries there, and being in the St. Lawrence River it was more remote from the danger of hostile New England and closer to the defences of Quebec. But here the fishing season was short and harbours shallow. Those cold, damp, northeast winds delayed the fishing season until June, long after the cod had arrived; and then the cod left again in mid-August.¹⁰ Obviously fur and agriculture were the least important of all the geographic considerations.

When geography alone was considered, the most favourable sites for development in Gaspé were found along the eastern shore. However, there was another factor to be considered — an external factor — which interfered in the proper consideration of geographic factors. The selection of the most favourable locations for development was hampered by government interference. When the government set limits to the free fishery in Gaspé and when it granted seigneuries which excluded some fishermen and when it subsequently found it necessary to arrange compromises between visiting fishermen and seigneurs, it was introducing external and non-geographic factors. Still, the development of the naturally most favourable sites for fishing and settlement prevailed over this outside interference because the government had little real control over the Gaspé fisheries.