Planting the Lord's Garden in New France: Gabriel Sagard's "Le Grand Voyage" and "Histoire du Canada"

Abstract

Gabriel Sagard, a Recollect brother, traveled as a missionary in New France from 1623 to 1629 when the Recollects were forced to leave Canada after the English temporarily occupied Quebec. For him, Canada represented le jardin de Dieu (Histoire 170) where the souls of Amerindians could be reaped for the Christian God.' Both the Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons,2 published in 1632 after Sagard's forced return to France, and the expanded version called the Histoire du Canada published in 1636 tell the story of the Recollects' efforts in establishing this garden. But they also represent a plea for the return of the rightful gardeners to their property. For when the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye returned Quebec to the French, the Recollects were not allowed to board the ships that carried three Jesuit missionaries to the New World.3 The metaphoric use of gardening for conversion and salvation is made more explicit in the Histoire du Canada than it was in the Grand Voyage. Sagard's story is framed there by both a vision of what the Lord's garden in New Canada could be with the support of powerful religious and merchant patrons in France and the frustration of the missionary effort without this support. The references to conversion as gardening structure the new telling of the story. In the first volume of the Histoire Sagard quotes the 1620 letter which Father Denis Jamet addressed to the Grand Vicaire of Pontoise in order to encourage his participation in this new venture of civilization and to demonstrate the goals of the Recollect mission: