Note: Breaking new territory always involved certain difficulties. The colonists who wanted to settle in the Saguenay had to overcome several. From the excerpt below, identify the main problems in colonizing the Saguenay.

Excerpt:
“The settlement of the Saguenay has made considerable progress in just a few years. However, there has been a stoppage for a couple of years. Many colonists have left the land they had begun to clear, and have returned to those they held in the neighbouring parishes, or to go settle in a few towns located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, such as Les Bergeronnes, Moulin à Baude, Les Escoumins and the Belzemis River.

The causes of this stoppage in the settlement of the Saguenay are many; I will only mention the most important ones here. The first is the disappointment felt by the colonists regarding the actual advantages of the Saguenay; these advantages have been so greatly exaggerated that the colonists had envisioned this new territory as some sort of earthly paradise. Living in this new Eden for some time has been enough to prove to the newcomers that the Saguenay, while having all the same disadvantages as the north shore of the St. Lawrence when it came to climate and temperature, was also entirely devoid of all the means of prosperity offered by the old settlements. No markets to sell foodstuff, no roads, no courts, no authority of any kind. It was the right of the strongest in its fullest extent.”

Source of excerpt: Jacques Crémazie, Rapport spécial sur le Saguenay (1850), Document available on the site, LesClassiques des sciences sociales, http://classiques.uqac.ca/collection_histoire_SLSJ/cremazie_jacques/crem…