and to portage past turbulent rapids and falls. The
missionaries were forced to bear their share of the work.
Noue, no longer young, was frequently faint from toil.
Brebeuf not only sustained him, but at many of the
portages, of which there were thirty-five in all, carried
a double load of baggage. The packs contained not only
clothing and food, but priestly vestments, requisites
for the altar, pictures, wine for the Mass, candles,
books, and writing material. The course lay over the
route which Le Caron had followed eleven years before,
up the Ottawa, up the Mattawa, across the portage to Lake
Nipissing, and then down the French River. Arrived in
Penetanguishene Bay, they landed at a village called
Otouacha. They then journeyed a mile and a half inland,
through gloomy forests, past cultivated patches of maize,
beans, pumpkins, squashes, and sunflowers, to Toanche,
where they found Viel's cabin still standing. For three
years this was to be Brebeuf's headquarters.

Huronia lay in what is now the county of Simcoe, Ontario,
comprising the present townships of Tiny, Tay, Flos,
Medonte, and Oro. On the east and north lay Lakes Simcoe
and Couchiching, the Severn river, and Matchedash Bay;
on the west, Nottawasaga Bay. Across the bay, or by land
a journey of about two days, where now are Bruce and Grey
counties, lived the Petuns, and about five days to the
south-west, the Neutrals. The latter tribe occupied both
the Niagara and Detroit peninsulas, overflowed into the
states of Michigan and New York, and spread north as far
as Goderich and Oakville in Ontario. All these nations,