Bonjour Men of France

A new world materializes over a ship’s bow where every inch is unknown, where savages roam, where danger lurks before every footstep, a place where untold wealth justifies each step into the unknown. In 1535, French adventurers battered by three months at sea sail up the formidable Saint Lawrence River disturbing a savage way of life and unknowingly rile an ancient god. They find ramparts of trees sheltering a shadow shifting, foreboding milieu, tangles wherein each capricious footstep takes the voyager deeper into an unforgiving labyrinth. The era’s most ferocious savages wait to waylay the Frenchmen; beyond the savages, Atotarho, the Most Fearsome Spirit waits to retaliate for the intrusion. The French newcomers put up a wall around four flimsy dwellings at Quebec. They hunker down, isolated from a war distracted homeland, starving and beset by raging internecine wars. They cannot distinguish fact from myth: is Atotarho the deformed ogre of ancient legend or a debonair youth?