| In
1606, Samuel de Champlain had established
his famous habitation on the fruitful shores of the
Bay of Fundy, in the beautiful Annapolis Basin of what
would much later become known as Nova Scotia, or New
Scotland. It was then very much the centre of New France.
The previous year, Champlain had been one of a group
of 79 men, who had tried to "overwinter" on
an island in the Sainte Croix River. Isle Sainte Croix
was situated just across the big bay with the highest
tides in the world from Porte Royale, and very close
to the modern border between the Canadian province of
New Brunswick and the U.S. State of Maine. He and his
men (there were no women!) chose an island because they
believed it would be easier to defend in case of attack.
They hadn't anticipated the dangerous ice that made
their little island virtually impossible to leave in
search of essential things like food or water.
Photographs
of the historical recreation of Champlain's habitation
at Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
Winter came early that year.
Snow was waist-deep by the sixth of October. It stayed
- with drifts that often went way overhead - until the
end of April. First the settlers ran out of firewood,
because they'd deforested their island in order to build
primitive shelters. Then they ran out of drinking water,
when the single weak spring on Isle Sainte Croix froze
solid. Finally, they ran out of food, and were unable
to safely dodge the giant ice floes, tossed about by
legendary three-story tides, in order to forage for
the game and fresh water that waited for them just a
frustratingly short distance away on the mainland. They
were close enough to shoot any moose that might have
wandered down to the shoreline, but unable to navigate
the treacherous waters in between in order to pick it
up. Even their alcohol froze. Cider was quite literally
"hard". It was issued as a daily ration, by
the solid pound. There simply wasn’t enough fuel
to melt it.
Thirty-five men died, and only 11 remained healthy when
spring finally arrived. Of those 11, only three decided
to stay in North America for another winter. The rest
went back to France.
One of the three was the famous cartographer and explorer
Samuel de Champlain.
The deadly plague that decimated his men that first
winter was scurvy. Champlain was a map maker who couldn’t
have understood that scurvy was caused by vitamin deficiencies.
Nobody did back then. But it was Champlain’s genius
to suggest that good food and friendly camaraderie would
go a long way towards curing the medical problems of
his small and struggling colony. So he instituted the
Order of Good Cheer. Under the rules of the Order,
special meals became the personal responsibility of
individual colonists. They inevitably endeavoured to
upstage one-another by providing the finest fish, and
fowl and game for their communal table. And it worked.
Entertaining tended to raise everyone’s spirits.
Good food brought better health.
- Paul Kennedy
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