-The forest of Soulanges

With the exception of the current site of Parks-Canada and a path alongside the river, all of the territory of our municipality (Coteau-du-Lac), at least up to 1755, was covered with a dense forest. Huge maples, oaks, ash, beech and walnut trees, all those who thrive in strong damp soil, also some resiniferous trees, constituted the first challenge to those who were granted a plot. "Colonist" were the settlers who learned to clear land in the forest. Our pioneers had to become lumberjacks first.

The trees of the land were huge: the most beautiful specimens often reached 30 m (100 feet) tall. They had to cut down the trees , lop the branches, section, and square the lumber to make them useful to building or for commerce.

The "Gazette des campagnes", cited by C.E. Mailhot, historian of the region of Bois-Francs, gave advice to the colonists in what concerned the felled trees, secular advice no doubt. "In a circle of about sixty feet (18 m) attack the biggest and the tallest. As soon as it is stretched out at your feet, strip it of it's all it's branches, then, cut the trunk into pieces of twelve to fifteen feet (3.65 to 4.5 m) in length (...) Cut down the other ones and treat them like the first (...) If we advise to cut down the biggest trees first, it is so that the settlers could start their pile with the big pieces, and not have to more them later."

At best, an energetic man could clear four acres of land per year. All this grueling work was done with a simple axe. The squaring-off was done with a "doloire", a type of axe that was twice as heavy.

-The settler's cabin: a priority

A settler usually started by building himself a cabin, a temporary shelter. The site chosen had to be fairly close to the future house. The clearing of a new land would begin there. They had to completely clear of all the trees and clean the ground where the new life would radiate.

The settlers' cabin was anything but luxurious. The historian of "Bois-Francs", C.E. Mailhot, described a model that was not exclusive from the region and must have been imitated in Soulanges. He says that these cabins "were made with pieces of round wood and covered with a flat roof at that was filled with soil. They were all fairly small and comprised of only one room. The door, made of beams or planks, had as a lock a small plank that could be moved to will. The hinges were made of wood pieces with holes adjusted with the pine or hemlock spruce knots in order to hang to door. Hinges were also made from old leather strips or elm bark. The floor was made with wood that had been split with an axe. Holes that were in the wall between the wood were filled with clay (...) The stove in use was te French stove with only one bridge and a pipe.

Once the cabin was built, the settler when to get his family and the minimum required for their survival, such as a cow, a pig, a few chickens, etc. In the next spring, he plowed the field with a pickaxe and sowed barley between the stumps, buckwheat and potatoes without removing the tree stumps. He would then start a more thorough clearing.

-Clearing: long-term work

A whole first year was spent cutting down trees. From the second year, the settler prepared the soil between the stumps et would sow it. He would take to the saw mill the logs that he had put aside for the construction his permanent home. He would also put aside the pieces that he would sell for art work. The summer would also be spent burning the small felled trees, that is, all the wood and branches that were not useful. The fires from these waste products would last for days and the smoke would obscure the sky.

Once the trees were down, the space between the stumps measured twenty and forty feet (6-12 m). The rich soil was ready to be sowed on the first year. The following years, however brought some complications: the soil, not benefitting from the shade provided by trees, wild vegetation was growing rapidly. Shrubs and weeds fought the good grain for space.

The local settlers used, almost exclusively, the axe and bull. They preferred the latter to horses, because they (the horses) would give resistance to hard labour. Plows were more or less useless until the stumps were removed from the fields, a process that could take ten years. They sowed by hand, and harvested with a scythe. The grain was beaten with a flail and used the wind to separate the grain from the husks. Our ancestors did not use any agricultural machines until 1832, the year the parish was established.

"Many years will pass before the settler will become a farmer, that is to say, an established man with goods, a white-washed house, some buildings and good land.""At his death, thirty years after having received his concession, the settler possessed thirty acres of arable land, a sown meadow, a barn, a bench at church, a stable, a more spacious house, a path in front of his door and neighbors. His life was used to clear the land, to build." (Louise Dechène)

These texts are quoted again from Jean Provencher.

The founder of the Drouin Genealogical Society has written, in one of his works, the following text to summarize the life of our pioneers: "Near 1780, the settlements on the north coast (of the St-Laurence River) stopped at Les Cèdres, and on the south coast at Chateauguay. There were churches at both locations"...and it is around them that people first gathered. But... the younger, wandering "Under the cover of the primitive forest, discovered elsewhere a fertile soil" and decided to place their settlements further. These new territories that the lords granted them, without to much difficulty, started quickly showing "many cabins that housed young couples with sturdy children. Throughout the day the sound of axes or falling trees resounded; when evening came, laughter was heard, they danced to the sound of fiddles...While the man axed away, the wife pulled out the weeds, collected the branches, made piles and set fire to them, to the cheers of the children. When the time of the harvest came, she handled the reaping hook alongside her husband, after having laid down her infant on a golden swath, in the center of haft burned blackened stumps, in the range of her voice, with a maple branch as a parasol...In humble cabins, built in queue, amidst the trees where they stood, there was more happiness, more legitimate hope than would ever contain in most bourgeois houses. They had youth, love, vigor, health; this sufficed to face the hardships and hard labours of day to day work. The harder they worked in the day, the better they slept at night...The Lord blessed these brave hearts that depended on their labours to earn a living, on their energy to acquire well-being, on their conscience to be noble citizens...They died the way they lived, in arms of parents and looking at the sky. All carried their noble titles in their arms, in their intelligence and their hearts."

extract (translation) from pages 81 to 86 of `HISTOIRE DE COTEAU-DU-LAC, volume 1: Les origines (the origins), author: Hector Besner (editor: Société d'histoire de Coteau-du-Lac; publication: July 1996 (in french only).