UNEARTHING HOCHELAGA
One of the enduring mysteries of Canadian history resurfaced this week when developer Ivanhoé Cambridge halted excavation for a new office tower on de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. between Metcalfe and Mansfield Sts. The shutdown came after photojournalist Robert
Real estate developer Ivanhoé Cambridge is suspending construction on a downtown office tower on de Maisonneuve Blvd. while archeologists determine if the site is an ancient aboriginal burial ground.
A VANISHED VILLAGE
On Oct. 2, 1535, Jacques Cartier landed in Montreal during his second voyage to Canada. More than 1,000 local people joyously danced around the visitors and showered them with fish and cornbread, “throwing so much of it into our longboats that it seemed to rain bread,” Cartier wrote.
The next day, he explored their village, Hochelaga, set among cornfields next to “a mountain … from the top of which one can see for a long distance. We named this mountain ‘ Mount Royal,’” Cartier wrote.
Inside the settlement, surrounded by a 10 metre high circular palisade, were about 50 bark- covered houses, “each about fifty or more paces in length.”
Cartier’s description was the first and last written account of Hochelaga. By 1603, when Samuel de Champlain explored Montreal, the mysterious village had vanished without a trace. What happened to it? Who were its inhabitants and what become of them? And where exactly had Hochelaga stood?
SIR JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON
Those questions remained unanswered until 1860, when construction workers building housing south of Sherbrooke St. between Metcalfe and Mansfield Sts. discovered some native remains.
John William Dawson, then the principal of McGill and Canada’s leading scientist, was called in to investigate. Dawson, a pioneer geologist who sparred with Charles Darwin over the origin of life, explored the site, at which he discovered a large number of skeletons, fire pits, tools, cooking pots and elegant clay pipes. Dawson concluded the site must be the former Hochelaga.
But questions remained. Dawson’s site, in the city block between Sherbrooke, Metcalfe, Mansfield and de Maisonneuve ( then Burnside), was much smaller than the large village described by Cartier. Had the explorer exaggerated the scope of Hochelaga — or was the Dawson site just part of a larger archeological treasure trove?
BRUCE TRIGGER AND JAMES PENDER GAST
In 1972, anthropologists Bruce Trigger of McGill University and James Pendergast of the National Museum of Canada published a landmark book, Cartier’s Hochelaga and the Dawson Site. They meticulously examined the artifacts unearthed by Dawson, which carbon dating determined were from the approximate period of Cartier’s visit. But the smaller size of the Dawson site suggested it might be a satellite village rather than the walled community Cartier had described. While the date of the Dawson site, and probably its location, were close to the site Cartier had described, it was impossible to confirm it really was Hochelaga, they concluded.
Pendergast and Trigger also tack led two other contentious questions: who were the inhabitants of Hochelaga, and what happened to them? Previous historians had suggested the villagers were members of the Huron, Iroquois or Algonquin nations.
But Pendergast and Trigger identified them as St. Lawrence Iroquoians — tribes not directly affiliated with the Iroquois. They likely disappeared in the late 16th century because of native warfare heightened by competition over the fur trade.
A SENTINEL FOR HERITAGE
Montreal photojournalist Robert Galbraith has a passion for the past dating back to his working- class childhood in Paisley, Scotland. He has recorded the destruction of 6th- century Buddha statues in Afghanistan and the sacking of heritage in the two Iraq wars.
Last month, he was walking past the former parking lot at 900 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. — destined to become Manulife Financial’s new Quebec headquarters — when he noticed preparations for future construction. He contacted the Culture department after filming trucks carting away earth from the work site — located at the southern edge of the Dawson site.
Galbraith said it is unacceptable that a site that could provide clues to the lost village of Hochelaga could be swept away without any archeological research.
“I guess you could say I’m a sort of sentinel,” said Galbraith, who covered the 1990 Oka Crisis from behind the barricades.
“This is our Coliseum. This is our pyramids. And it was about to be lost.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
Officials for the developer and provincial culture department met Tuesday afternoon to hammer out a protocol for archeological research on the site.
Jean- Jacques Adjizian, director of heritage for the department, said it was important to halt work pending archeological investigation because of the site’s proximity to the Dawson site.
Given the size of Hochelaga as described by Cartier, it is quite possible that the Dawson site extends farther than the limits defined by Dawson, Adjizian added.
Christian Gates St- Pierre, an invited researcher in the anthropology department of the Université de Montréal, said the possibility of finding remaining vestiges from Hochelaga is slight — perhaps 10 per cent. That’s because the downtown area has been built and rebuilt many times — removing most traces of earlier habitation. But he said the venture is well worth it.
“It’s our last chance to find the vestiges of Hochelaga,” he said.