ream. There is no
mention by St. Vallier of the Indian village at Aukpaque, which was
probably of rather later origin: there may have been a camping ground
in that locality, however, for the Indians had many camping places on
the islands and intervals, particularly at the mouths of rivers, to
which they resorted at certain seasons. The name Ekouipahag or, as our
modern Indians call it, Ek-pa-hawk, signifies "the head of the tide,"
or beginning of the swift water. The charms of the place have excited
the admiration of many a tourist since St. Vallier's day. At the time
of the Acadian expulsion a number of fugitives, who escaped their
pursuers, fled for refuge to the St. John river, and took up their
abode at this spot where they cultivated the intervals and islands
until the arrival of the Loyalists in 1783, when they were again
obliged to look for situations more remote.

The progress of Bishop St. Vallier coming down the St. John river was
expeditious, the water being then at freshet height. At the mouth of
the Madawaska, which he named St. Francois de Sales, he met a small
band of savages, who pleaded for a missionary. The day following, May
17th, he came to the Grand Falls, or as he calls it "le grand Sault
Saint Jean-Baptiste." His book contains the first published
description of this magnificent cataract[4]. The rapidity of the
journey is seen in the fact that the bishop and his party slept the
next night at the Indian village of Medoctec, "the first fort of
Acadia," eighty miles below the Grand Falls. Here they found a hundred
savages, who were greatly pleased when informed that the bishop had
come for the purpose of establishing a mission for their benefit. This
promise was fulfilled soon after by the sending to them the Recollet
missionary Simon, of whom we shall hear more ere long. It is evident
that the French adventurers the bishop encountered in the course of
this wilderness journey led a pretty lawless life, for he observed in
his narrative: "It is to be wished that the French who have their
habitations along this route, were so correct in their habits as to
lead the poor savages by their example to embrace Christianity, but we
must hope that in the course of time the reformation of the one may
bring about the conversion of the other."

[4] "Nous vimes l'endroit qu'on appelle le grand Sault Saint
Jean-Baptiste, ou la riviere de Saint Jean faisant du haut
d'un rocher fort eleve une terr