CHAPTER III

CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC

From the Island of Orleans to Quebec the distance is
a league. I arrived there on the third of July, when
I searched for a place suitable for our settlement,
but I could find none more convenient or better than
the point of Quebec, so called by the savages, which
was covered with nut-trees. I at once employed a
portion of our workmen in cutting them down, that we
might construct our habitation there: one I set to
sawing boards, another to making a cellar and digging
ditches, another I sent to Tadoussac with the barque
to get supplies. The first thing we made was the
storehouse for keeping under cover our supplies, which
was promptly accomplished through the zeal of all,
and my attention to the work.

Thus opens Champlain's account of the place with which
his name is linked imperishably. He was the founder of
Quebec and its preserver. During his lifetime the results
seemed pitifully small, but the task once undertaken was
never abandoned. By steadfastness he prevailed, and at
his death had created a colony which became the New France
of Talon and Frontenac, of La Salle and D'Iberville, of
Brebeuf and Laval. If Venice from amid her lagoons could