How was the Saint-Maurice River Created?

Legend told by Jean-Philippe Marcotte, Entertainer and History Interpreter. 

Text on screen:  How was the Saint-Maurice River Created?

Close-up of Mr. Jean-Philippe Marcotte. Text on screen:  Jean-Philippe Marcotte, History Interpreter. 

Jean-Philippe Marcotte: 

I was told this story when I was a logger up in the far north, past the camp at Pomerleau. An elderly Atikamekw told me this story. Basically, the way he explained it to me was that one of their members—a long long time ago—decided to go live as a hermit further into the woods, as some tended to do. They move further away, and the young people were still able to come to them for advice afterwards, but at least they had to work to get their answers.

He was three, four, maybe even five days of canoeing from the big village, and that’s when he said, “Here is a beautiful place to settle down and take root.”

Once he unloaded his canoe, he started making supper. He told himself, “I’ll start looking for the right place tomorrow,” but he was still happy with the place where he had arrived. After, he started going about his business, but off in the distance, not long afterwards, he heard an “ahouuuuuuu” coming from the north. He quickly realized that it was a wolf. The thing about wolves is that when you hear only one, you don’t have to worry too much, because it’s calling other wolves. But when you start hearing more wolves howling, then you realize there’s a good chance you’re going to be their supper.

And that’s exactly what happened. He barely had time to pick up his bow and arrows when he noticed that he started to hear the other wolves around him. He started to feel their presence in the forest.  And, of course, when you feel that you are on the brink of death, you always tend to be a bit more religious. That’s when you pray to God, or in his case, the Great Spirit as they call him, who is the creator of the Earth and everything.

And then, as soon as he called upon the Great Spirit, telling him that he could still be useful in this world, that’s when we heard a deer coming. Passing through the foliage of a grove. And then, when he saw the deer, he said, “It’s him, the Great Spirit has heard me. It means I am still useful here on Earth.”  The only thing was that, when he took a closer look at the deer, he realized that this deer’s antlers were so large that no, no, no—it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t a normal deer.

And while he was thinking all this, the creature opened its mouth to talk to him. Yeesh! He quickly realized that it was the Great Spirit who had come to visit him to explain that everyone shares the land, the forest and everything on Earth, but that everyone also has a part to play. The smaller creatures are eaten by the bigger creatures that are eaten by the even bigger creatures, which are then eaten by man. But, not one man has been eaten by a creature this year. And as it turns out, tonight, the wolves are hungry, and it’s their turn to eat.

Yikes! But, this was too much to bear for our hunter. “No, no, no, but I can still be useful here in this world. And, I just have to see how I can… I’m absolutely certain that… I could—I don’t know—help my people discover new lands.”

“No, no, no, no, you don’t understand, I want something that will benefit everyone,” said The Great Spirit. He looked him in the eyes and said: “Maybe you could help me make a large river that could be used by everyone. The creatures could feed in it and could drink from it. Your people could travel on this river. A large river that would reach the great river, which travels all the way to the ocean.”

Anything instead of being eaten by wolves was a good idea to our hunter. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem, no problem, I’ll do that for you.” He started looking through his belongings, but he didn’t have a shovel. He can’t really start to dig a river without a shovel.

The Great Spirit said: “No, no, no, no, I’m just going to ask you to get in your bark canoe, start paddling, and I’ll take care of the rest. Leave now, go down towards the great river and, from there, everything will fall into place.”

The man wasn’t too sure, but at the same time, it was the Great Spirit who asked him to do this, so he did what he was told. He picked up his things, loaded the bark canoe, and he started paddling. At the beginning, like any hunter would do, he paddled in a beautiful straight line, between the hills on the sides, the forest and so on.

But, as he is making this beautiful river, perfect for his people to travel on eventually, he starts to get curious. As he’s paddling, the river starts to form in back of him, so he says: “Would anything happen if I went over a mound?” As he said this, he saw a nice large mound to his right, so he turned the canoe, almost at a 90-degree angle, and then lined up the canoe to the mound in a nice straight line. He gave himself a push to make sure he would make it over.

And as soon as he did that, whoosh! A waterfall formed behind him. Now, folks, you can understand how from the sound the waterfall made—with the woosh and everything—he was even more curious. So, he started to turn the canoe around, really slowly to come and see it up close. Then he started going around in circles, to see the magnitude of what he had just created. Well, what the Great Spirit had just created—he didn’t really do much. But he had still made a big waterfall, and while he was doing these circles in the water, he was also creating a bay.

Now, our hunter was really starting to be curious. He went over some rocks, made a rapid here; passed over another mound, made another waterfall there. While he was on top of the second mound, he saw the great river that flows into the ocean. He knew that his task was coming to an end.

But he wasn’t quite ready for the end to come just yet, so he started zigzagging from left to the right, as if he was in no hurry to finish. And taking a bit more time to reach his destination. But at some point, he was at peace with himself. From then on, he practically let himself be carried along by the current, paddling just enough to say he was, and taking the time to savour the moment of his last big paddle.

When he reached the end, the tip of the canoe touched this great river that flows to the sea. At that moment, the canoe capsized. Our hunter was thrown overboard on one side, and his belongings on the other. That’s when the hunter, his belongings and the canoe created three islands at the end of the river.

And since then, folks, the Saint-Maurice River has been with us.