Ignatius, St. Mary's, and many another now flourishing town of Canada, which were yet in their infancy when the news of the great work going forward in the West reached the ears of the Pope himself. Struck by the vast field thus opened for the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, the Holy Father expressed his loving approval of the work of his children in the land of their exile. The King of France followed suit; the enthusiasm spread to his nobles, and, eager to win the favor of the heads of their church and of their native land, numbers of young French gentlemen of rank joined the missionary band, and devoted their wealth to its cause. The result was what might have been expected. Montreal became the headquarters of the Indian church, St. Mary's, lying about half-way between it and Lake Huron, the rendezvous of the missionaries from distant points, who met three times a year to give an account of their progress.
Six years after the first arrival of Fathers Brébœuf and Daniel on Lake Huron, the missionary outposts had extended as far west as Green Bay, on the north-west of Lake Michigan; and though the iron belt of the Five Nations still kept the French from the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, Brébœuf was able in 1641, accompanied by Father Joseph Marie Chaumonot, to visit the Onguiaharas, a neutral tribe living on a river of the same name, now the Niagara.
The Onguiaharas—who appear to have acted as mediators between the Iroquois and the Hurons and Algonquins, members of the rival tribes meeting in peace in their huts—informed Brébœuf that they were themselves at deadly war with a fierce nation living on the west, which they called the Fire Nation, and described as so reckless of human life, that the French did not care to venture among them while so much still remained to be done around the Great Lakes.
Though so near on this occasion to the now world-famous Falls of Niagara, Brébœuf does not appear either to have heard of them or to have visited them. He collected, however, a good deal of information respecting the habits of the natives, which are embodied in the charming Relations des Jesuites, from which the greater part of our early knowledge of the Canadian Indians is derived. In the same year (1641) of this first visit to the Niagara River, two missionaries, named Charles Raymbault and Claude Pigart, made their way to Lake Nipissing—the most north-westerly point reached by Champlain—arriving there just in time to witness a grand native ceremony in honor of the dead, which they describe as extremely imposing.
