de the trip from Montreal to the
outlying depots and return, were contemptuously dubbed _mangeurs de
lard_,[198] "pork-eaters," because their pampered appetites demanded
peas and pork rather than hulled corn and tallow. Two of the crew, one
at the bow and the other at the stern, being especially skilled in the
craft of handling the paddle in the rapids, received higher wages than
the rest. Into the canoe was first placed the heavy freight, shot, axes,
powder; next the dry goods, and, crowning all, filling the canoe to
overflowing, came the provisions--pork, peas or corn, and sea biscuits,
sewed in canvas sacks.

The lading completed, the voyageur hung his votive offerings in the
chapel of Saint Anne, patron saint of voyageurs, the paddles struck the
waters of the St. Lawrence, and the fleet of canoes glided away on its
six weeks' journey to Grand Portage. There was the Ottawa to be
ascended, the rapids to be run, the portages where the canoe must be
emptied and where each voyageur must bear his two packs of ninety pounds
apiece, and there were the _decharges_, where the canoe was merely
lightened and where the voyageurs, now on the land, now into the rushing
waters, dragged it forward till the rapids were passed. There was no
stopping to dry, but on, until the time for the hasty meal, or the
evening camp-fire underneath the pines. Every two miles there was a stop
for a three minutes' smoke, or "pipe," and when a portage was made it
was reckoned in "pauses," by which is meant the number of times the men
must stop to rest. Whenever a burial cross appeared, or a stream was
left or entered, the voyageurs removed their hats, and made the sign of
the cross while one of their number said a short prayer; and again the
paddles beat time to some rollicking song.[199]

Dans mon chemin, j'ai rencontre
Trois cavalieres, bien montees;
L'on, lon, laridon daine,
Lon, ton, laridon dai.

Trois cavalieres, bien montees,
L'un a cheval, et l'autre a pied;
L'on, lon, laridon daine,
Lon, ton, laridon dai.

Arrived at Sault Ste. Marie, the fleet was often doubled by newcomers,
so that sometimes sixty canoes swept their way along the north shore,
the paddles marking sixty strokes a minute, while the rocks gave back
the echoes of Canadian songs rolling out from five hundred lusty
throats. And so they drew up at Grand Portage, near the present
northeast boundary of Minnesota, now a sleepy, squalid little vil