Jean Cadieux, a “coureur des bois” founded a family with an Algonquian wife, named Marie Bourdon. He was born in Boucherville, March 12, 1671, with father Jean Cadieux and mother Marie Valade, where he was the youngest son. Hunter and trapper, he would trade with the natives and exchanged the furs for provisions and manufactured products, which permitted him to survive winter in his small cabin in the middle of the woods. On a beautiful day in May 1709, he went from Morisson Island to Montreal with a couple natives to sell some furs. During one of their stops at one of the seven falls at Grand Calumet Island, one of his companions, a young Algonquian, went out to do some scouting, and spotted a group of Iroquois warriors. They were setting up a trap for any unfortunate traveler so that they could steal their furs. In order to escape, they would have to go over impassable rapids and under a volley of arrows! In order to insure the safety of his men and family, Cadieux decided that he would, along with a young Algonquian, divert the Iroquois and attract them far from the rapids so that they could cross them in safety. All of them hid in the bottom of the canoes upriver, and waited on the appointed signal, which was a shot of the gun, in order to leave.
An hour later, Cadieux and his friend surprised the Iroquois and brought them away from the rapids. A shot was fired: it was the awaited signal that Cadieux’s companions were waiting for to affront the terrible rapids that awaited them. None of the Iroquois noticed them, for they were too busy trying to catch Cadieux and his companion. With an amazing dexterity, the Algonquian paddlers guided the frail bark canoes in the middle of the crashing waters, trying to stay away from the rocks, which would have ripped the fragile oak bark, and led the travelers to a certain death. For two days straight, they navigated the rough waters with a hellish pace and finally reached the Two Mountains Lake where they found refuge at the fort.
Not seeing him come back, three of his companions, after having put his family and the furs in security, left to try to find Cadieux. The Iroquois had left the island and the Algonquians found a small shelter made of branches near the seven falls portage. The Algonquian warriors left to find their companions, reading the tracks left by the aggressors and the fugitives like in a great book. The young Algonquian had been killed and, for three days, the Iroquois searched the island trying to find Cadieux who continued to wage war, as uncatchable as a ghost!
After two days of fruitless searches, having lost all hope of finding Cadieux, they discovered a wooden cross planted in the ground close to the shelter that they had found on their way up. And there, half dead, lay the body of Jean. He held in his hand a long piece of bark on which, before dying, he had written as if in complaint, his story.
He had managed to escape the Iroquois, but tired, and out of strength after three days of guerrilla and of deprivations, he had seen his companions arrive, but he couldn’t find the strength to call them. He prepared himself to die, digging his tomb, and sticking a cross in the ground after having written his complaint. Then, with his last bit of strength, he buried himself, waiting for death to come in a place called the Petit Rocher of the Haute Montagne.
One hundred and fifty years later, Jean-Charles Taché related that the legend of Cadieux was so long-lived that the “coureurs de bois” that passed on the Ottawa River would stop on his tomb to pray, touch the cross, and take a small piece of it for good luck. Some would even attach to a nearby tree a copy of the complaint written on a piece of oak bark. Taché re-wrote the complaint that was composed of eleven couplets and found a priest, Father Cadieux, who confided in him that Jean Cadieux was the grand-father of his grand-father.
In 1905, the workers that built the Town Hall in Bryson asked and got permission to build a stone monument to the memory of Cadieux, in the place of the wooden cross, which they did without any pay, with their only reason being in honor of the memory of Cadieux.
That’s when began the battle of the monument between Bryson and Grand Calumet Island, each claiming the right to own the monument for the memory of Cadieux. The monument was vandalized then destroyed by vandals. In order to protect it, the habitants of the island took the rest of the monument during the night and installed it in a park at the entrance of the village in order to watch over it.
Cadieux, Jean, legendary French Canadian VOYAGEUR of the 18th century who lived in the Ottawa River region. When his cabin was attacked by Indians, he sent his family down the rapids in his canoe and stayed behind to prevent pursuit. The Virgin Mary is supposed to have guided the canoe through the rapids, which were generally portaged. Pursued by the Indians through the forest, Cadieux gradually weakened; he dug his own grave, erected a cross above it and composed a ballad about his misfortune, which he wrote in blood on birchbark; it was found by those who came to look for him. The ballad is well known in French Canadian tradition.
Catholic Encyclopedia, Author NANCY SCHMITZ,
The Passing of Cadieux
THAT man is brave who at the nod of fate
Will lay his life a willing offering down,
That they who loved him may know length of days;
May stay awhile upon this pleasant earth
Drinking its gladness and its vigour in,
Though he himself lie silent evermore,
Dead to the gentle calling of the Spring,
Dead to the warmth of Summer; wrapt in dream
So deep, so far, that never dreamer yet
Has waked to tell his dream. Men there may be
Who, careless of its worth, toss life away,
A counter in some feverish game of chance,
Or, stranger yet, will sell it day by day
For toys to play with; but a man who knows
The love of life and holds it dear and good,
Prizing each moment, yet will let it go
That others still may keep the precious thing–
He is the truly brave !
This did Cadieux,
A man who loved the wild and held each dayA gift from Le Bon Dieu to fill with joy
And offer back again to Him who gave
(See, now, Messieurs, his grave!) We hold it dear
The story you have heard–but no? 'Tis strange,
For we all know the story of Cadieux !
He was a Frenchman born. One of an age
That glitters like a gem in history yet,
The Golden Age of France ! 'Twould seem, Messieurs,
That every country has a Golden Age?
Ah well, ah well !–
But this Cadieux, he came
No one knew whence, nor cared, indeed, to know.
His simple coming seemed to bring the day,
So strong was he, so gallant and so gay–
A maker of sweet songs; with voice so clear
'Twas like the call of early-soaring bird
Hymning the sunrise; so at least 'twould seem
Mehwatta thought–the slim Algonquin girl
Whose shy black eyes the singer loved to praise.
She taught him all the soft full-throated words
With which the Indian-warriors woo their brides,
And he taught her the dainty phrase of France
And made her little songs of love, like this:
'Fresh is love in May
When the Spring is yearning,
Life is but a lay,
Love is quick in learning.
'Sweet is love in June:
All the roses blowing
Whisper 'neath the moon
Secrets for love's knowing.
'Sweet is love alway
When life burns to embers,
Hearts keep warm for aye
With what love remembers !'
Their wigwam rose beside the Calumet
Where the great waters thunder day and night
And dawn chased dawn away in gay content.
Then it so chanced, when many moons were spent,
The brave Cadieux and his brown brothers rose
To gather up their wealth of furs for trade;
And in that moment Fate upraised her hand
And, wantonly, loosed Death upon the trail,
Red death and terrible–the Iroquois!
(Oh, the long cry that rent the startled dawn!)
One way alone remained, if they would live–
The Calumet, the cataract–perchance
The good Saint Anne might help!
'In God's name, go !
Push off the great canoe, Mehwatta, go!–
Adieu, petite Mehwatta! Keep good cheer.
Say thou a prayer; beseech the good Saint Anne!–
For two must stay behind to hold the way,
And shall thy husband fail in time of need?
And would Mehwatta's eyes behold him shamed?–
Adieu!'–Oh, swift the waters bear them on!
Now the good God be merciful! ....
They stayed,
Cadieux and one Algonquin, and they played
With a bewildered foe, as children play,
Crying 'Lo, here am I!' and then 'Lo, here!' 'Lo, there!'
Their muskets spoke from everywhere at once–
So swift they ran behind the friendly trees,
They seemed a host with Death for General–
And the fierce foe fell back.
But ere they went
Their wingèd vengeance found the Algonquin's heart.
Cadieux was left alone!
Ah, now, brave soul,
Began the harder part! To wander through
The waking woods, stern hunger for a guide;
To see new life and know that he must die;
To hear the Spring and know she breathed 'Adieu' ! ...
One wonders what strange songs the forest heard,
What poignant cry rose to the lonely skies
To die in music somewhere far above
Or fall in sweetness back upon the earth–
The requiem of that singer of sweet songs!
They found him–so–with cross upon his heart,
His cold hand fast upon this last Complaint–
'Ends the long trail–at sunset I must die !
I sing no more–O little bird, sing on
And flash bright wing against a brighter sky!
'Sing to my Dear, as once I used to sing;
Say that I guarded love and kept the faith–
Fly to her, little bird, on swifter wing.
'The world slips by, the sun drops down to-night–
Sweet Mary, comfort me, and let it be
Thy arms that hold me when I wake to light!'
The original French Poem can be found at
- Quand vous aurez entendu deux coups de fusil venant du portage, foncez vers les rapides. Prenez bien soin de ma femme!
- When you hear two blows of rifle coming from the bearing, sink towards the rapids. Take care of my wife well!
