Yankees, British and the Saint John Valley French
(Extracts from the River Revue, issue number 3, 1997) - Béatrice Craig
;The Upper Saint John Valley seems to have been a well-frequented place from the late eighteenth century onward. Until the building of railways in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the valley was the only winter route between Halifaz and Quebec City, and one of the few summer ones. Consequently, it was frequently used by British people, who could be government officials, couriers or private individuals travelling for business or pleasure. The latter were usually drawn by the Grand Falls, which had quickly become a well-known public attraction; even official travelers would make it a point to stop along their way and view it. Many of those British travelers indulged in a pastime common among the respectable classes of the time, the writing of travelogues, and left an account of their trip through the upper reaches of the St. John Valley. As for more official travelers, they often visited the region specifically to collect information for the report they were expected to produce. (p.65)
BritishTravellers went through the upper St. John Valley even before it was settled. American travellers did not appear until much later, with the exception of the surveyor of the Bingham purchase who made his way to the upper St. John in 1790. No other Americans seem to have reached the upper St. John until the late 1810s, when timber cruisers and lumberers arrived. Some of those men settled permanently in the area, but none bothered penning his impressions for posterity. Then, in 1820, Maine became a state, took a hard-line position in the northeastern boundary dispute, and tried to assert her sovereignty over her very remote and not very accessible northern reaches. She sent her agents to the disputed territory to investigate "trespasses and aggressions" by the British, to inquire into the inhabitants'land claims, and, after the settling of the boundary dispute, to to report upon the progress of education in the selltlement. Official reports were picked up by journalists who drew their own protraits of the Madawaska French for the benefit of their readers; private visitors followed in the footsteps of the governemtn agents, and published their impressions.....              The Travellers indifferent to the ethnicity of the inhabitants were not bad observers - far from it. They gave precise descriptions of the landscape and the fauna, and in the case of the pleasure travellers, of their own and rugged route. One must conclude that they did not dwell on the issue because they did not think it was important. They took it for granted that the world was made of all sorts and accepted it with equanimity. (p. 67)
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