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During the difficult winter of 1606/1607, in a tiny wooden palisade at Porte Royale, on the Annapolis Basin in Nova Scotia, Samuel de Champlain created what was arguably the very first ‘cooking club’ or ‘food fraternity’ on Canadian soil. He called it L’Ordre de Bon Temps—The Order of Good Cheer—and it only lasted that one winter.


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.

Port Royal, NS Port Royal, NS
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

*Port Royal photographs appear courtesy of Parks Canada.

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Related Web Sites

Parks Canada - Port Royal

Saint Croix Island - 400 years of history

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