La chasse galerie

LA CHASSE-GALERIE

In Legends of le Détroit, Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin tells a love story which revolves around the earliest known version of the chasse-galerie legend in North America. It is very different from the popular québécois versions, in which some lumberjacks make a pact with the devil to fly through the air to go visit their families and girlfriends. The Detroit River version, which is about a hunter, is a lot closer to the ancient european roots of the Chasse Galerie.

Sébastien Lacelle was a an inveterate hunter who lived on the Canadian side of the Detroit River around 1780. One day, following the trail of a deer he had previously wounded, he came upon a small cabin in the forest. There, he found a beautiful young girl tending to the deer’s wounds. Her name was Zoé de Mersac. It was love at first sight between her and Sebastien. Not too long after they became engaged to be married.
One fine September morning, the day before they were to wed, Sebasten and Zoé were walking along the riverbank.

La chasse-galerie, Brett Jubinville. Little man on a boat with his dog, in marshes.

Zoé, who believed in omens, had a premonition of evil. Sébastien was doing his best to cheer her up. But he was suddenly distracted by a flight of ducks. Promising to be back at dawn the next day, he left with his companions for one last hunting trip. He jokingly promised his worried bride that he would be back — dead or alive — in time for the wedding. She lingered on the spot, listening to the baying of Sébastien’s hunting dog, long after his canoe had faded from sight.

But the next day, Sébastien did not return. Zoé waited for him all day by the river’s edge. Her friends and family came to join her, and the day went by with no sign of her beloved. Days, weeks, seasons followed each other: no Sébastien. But instead of despairing, Zoé strangely became more and more joyful.You see, Sebastien had appeared to her, not long after his departure. She had seen him, in a canoe that flew among the clouds. She had heard his voice, promising that he would return for her in a year and a day.

La chasse-galerie, Brett Jubinville. Little man and his dog are very pale.

But in spite of her joyful spirits, Zoé’s body grew weaker by the day. She became pale and thin. At the end of a year and a day, she asked to be dressed in her bride’s dress and to be brought to the shore. Once there, she kept staring at a far-off part of the sky. All of a sudden she cried out: “Do you see him? There’s Sébastien coming to get me! Listen to his dog bark! I’m coming, Sébastien!”

Zoé fell down dead while her astonished friends watched a ghostly canoe speeding away through the clouds. The vessel disappeared, and for a long while the barking of the dog echoed across the sky.