Life in the Colonial Militia
The feats of bravery and endurance of Canadian militiamen have become the stuff of legends. In the eyes of their enemies, the Canadians possessed superhuman abilities. They were capable of traveling hundreds of kilometers in the dead of winter, their knowledge of the terrain equaled that of their native allies, and they crack shots with the flintlock muskets.
They were also noted for their cunning and cruelty. In the early years of settlement they often attacked their enemies in the night, sometimes burning their captives in their homes, and spared neither women nor children. Although the cruelty of boarder raids abated considerably in the eighteenth century, the Canadian Militia remained widely respected and feared.
The French authorities made every effort to keep their militia in top fighting condition. After 1669 every Canadian male between the ages of sixteen and sixty capable of bearing arms was subject to conscription and monthly military training. In 1752, when Governor Ange de Menneville Duquesne discovered the militia not up to scratch, he ordered weekly exercises and required each solider to have a rifle, full powder horn and at least twenty bullets. Militiamen wore civilian clothes and were thus spared the expense of buying a uniform. The young men who cut their teeth on the grueling fur trade expeditions into the pays d’en haut clearly had the advantage over their farm based cousins in the militia, but most men in the colony were accustomed to hunting and new the basic of wilderness survival.
Few men, it seems tired to shirk their military responsibilities and many men aspired to the social and political rewards that went with the unpaid position of a militia captain. The old feudal emphasis on military loyalties coupled with the desperate attempt to save their homelands meant that almost all male colonists were willing to serve.
Following the conquest of 1760, British commanders and traditions dulled the Canadian military enthusiasm for military exploits, but during the French regime the Canadian militia was the best fighting force on the continent.
Chartrand Rene’, ‘Death Walks on Snowshoes’, Horizon Canada, pp.260-274