After a long winter of hunting, Jean-Marc and René want to be the first trappers at the trading post, to get the best price for their furs. They paddle day and night, but stop for a meal and see a bear. René runs off. Jean-Marc climbs a tree and waits for hours. When the bear doesn’t return, Jean-Marc gets down and finds the canoe in the moonlight. He can barely see his companion, but he gets in and paddles madly through rapids and over a waterfall. But in the morning he sees that his companion wasn’t René, it was the bear!

Tante Rose is a good woman who lives with her cat, Moustache. One day, Jean-Marc knocks on the door. He offers to help with the chores in exchange for a place to stay. Tante Rose thinks she and Moustache are fine as they are, so Jean-Marc suggests they ask the cat. Suddenly, the cat can talk! It wants Jean-Marc to stay. Tante Rose agrees.

Jean-Marc is a good worker, and Tante Rose is glad to have so much help. They tell stories in the evenings, about the White Owl, Feux-Follets, and Lutins. When Tante Rose was a young girl, she found herself dancing with the Devil after midnight. Jean-Marc and René once made a deal with the Devil and he flew their canoe all the way from a lumber camp in the Gatineau to Montreal, to a New Year’s Eve party.

Then one day, René comes along, looking for Jean-Marc. He wants him to come back out on the trap lines with him. Tante Rose says Jean-Marc is a very common name, could René describe him? René says Jean-Marc is such a good hunter that once he almost caught a Loup-garou (half man, half wolf). And, he says, Jean-Marc can throw his voice. Tante Rose thinks that sounds like evil spirits.

Jean-Marc doesn’t want to go back to trapping with René; he wants to stay with Tante Rose. Tante Rose wants Jean-Marc to stay too, but not if he dabbles in black magic. Jean-Marc gets Tante Rose to ask the cat if a person can throw his voice. “Of course not,” says the cat, “that’s ridiculous.” “Thank goodness,” says Tante Rose. And they live happily ever after.

 

The story of the Flying Canoe, La Chasse-Galerie, was first published by Honoré Beaugrand. This well-known French Canadian tale is the centrepiece of our play about the myths, legends, and daily life in early French Canada.

We have a pdf of the original story, as published in Century Magazine in 1892. It's a fairly large file (5 megs). Download it here.