"In their cold northern outposts, the voyageurs entertained each other with stories to pass the time. One favourite story, "Chasse-galerie," told how the devil came to a grumbling band of voyageurs in the mid-winter snows. He pitied their loneliness, he said, and he would help them. He would give wings to their canoe and fly them home in a single night. There was only one condition, said the devil craftily. If they spoke a single word during the magic night, they would never get home. Their souls would be his.
"These were hommes du nord. They were tough and brave. If keeping silent was all they had to do, no devil's trick would make them speak a word.
"In they leapt, and the canoe rose in the air...."
