[Pour saisir le contexte complet, voir le billet du 31 janvier]
Portage du Témisouata, circa 1840
En1844, le missionnaire mormon, Jesse Wentworth Crosby (1820-1893), a séjourné dans les « British provinces of Canada », à savoir le Nouveau-Brunswick et la Nouvelle-Écosse. Pour s’y rendre, il a parcouru la vallée du Saint-Laurent. Voici le récit de son voyage de Québec à Grand Sault, au Nouveau-Brunswick. Crosby a ensuite continué son chemin sur le Saint-Jean jusqu’à Fredericktown.
After a stop of four days, we engaged passage on board a French vessel; not a soul could speak English; set off June 11th with ebb tide and sundown with a fine breeze until flood tide, then down anchor; held on till ebb, thence on. The country below Quebec is gloomy. Lofty and precipitous banks, while blue ranges of mountains are seen in the distances, inhabited by French. Their small white cots, (cottages), are seen along the river; they appear as white spots scattered over the hills and mountains. Arrived at St. Andre [de Kamouraska].
June 12th. This is one hundred miles from Quebec; here the country is rocky and very broken; thence to Riviere du Loup, which is a great place for fishing; the tide rises rapidly and high. Extends one hundred miles above Quebec to Three Rivers; rises at Quebec 15 feet. From Riviere du Loup, proceeded back from the St. Lawrence, crossed the Portage, 36 miles to Lake Temisquata; bought a canoe and crossed the lake 15 miles; thence down the Madwaska to its junction with the St. John at Little Falls [Edmundston], twenty-two miles; thence by means of our canoe to Grand Falls, 36 miles, hired the canoe drawn around the falls; thence on our journey as before. Inhabitants are nearly all French until we reached the Grand Falls below that are English people…