Bangor celebrates Champlain today

BANGOR – Intrepid French explorer Samuel de Champlain forged the Penobscot River as far up as the Kenduskeag Stream 400 years ago this past fall.

City officials are commemorating the anniversary of his feat with the reading today of a proclamation for Samuel de Champlain Week and a small ceremony to recognize Champlain and all explorers at 11 a.m. in Norumbega Park.

“De Champlain deserves credit for his visit here,” Gerry Palmer, local history buff and former city councilor, said Tuesday. “I think it’s a pretty big deal … de Champlain was a very interesting guy.”

Among Champlain’s accomplishments were naming Mount Desert Island in 1604, founding Quebec City in 1608 and founding the first French colony in North America at St. Croix Island in 1604.

That’s not bad for a man who operated in the New World under constant threat of attack by Indians, starvation, extremely cold weather and disease, Palmer said.

When Champlain founded the St. Croix Island settlement, he chose an easily defensible spot that was located safely in the middle of the St. Croix River.

What the Europeans didn’t realize was that the river was too dangerous to walk on when it froze over.

“It was so cold their hard cider froze,” Palmer said. “They drank Spanish wine mixed with snow, but they lost 35 out of 79 people. The cause of death was malnutrition and scurvy.”

While Champlain’s quick trip up the river to the future location of Bangor did not lead to any settlement, his visit here should not be downplayed, Yvon Labbe of the University of Maine Franco-American Centre said Tuesday.

“It’s significant historically, and it could be significant now,” Labbe said. “It’s an opportunity to create a link with Quebec.”

As Labbe sees it, while Bangor and Quebec share many historical ties, more could be done today to encourage tourism, education and trade between the two cities.

“There are no formal bridges that have been created,” Labbe noted.

Tourists from even farther afield might be curious about Champlain’s travels in Maine, he said.

“The French in Europe are very interested in what happened to their people who came to this continent in the 17th and 18th centuries,” he said.

Labbe spoke in French on Monday night at the City Council meeting, during which he officially accepted the proclamation on behalf of Franco-Americans, Francophiles and those of French heritage in the state. About 30 percent to 40 percent of all Mainers are of French descent, the center director pointed out.

“I thanked them for having this little event and for remembering there were French in the state,” Labbe said, “and that we are all descendants of this explorer. Not literally, but he was the first to come here.”