On the 4th of June, 1613, during his first visit to the Ottawa Valley, Samuel de Champlain entered the following observation in his journal:

"We passed a fall a league from there, which is half a league wide and descends from a height of six or seven fathoms.  There are many little islands, which are nothing but cliffs, ragged and inaccessible, covered with poor brushwood.  At one place the water falls with such violence upon a rock that, in the course of time, there has been hollowed out in it a wide and deep basin, so that the water flows round and round there and makes, in the middle, great whirlpools.  Hence, the savages call Asticou, which means Kettle.  This waterfall makes such a noise in this basin that it can be heard more than two leagues off.  The savages who pass by it have a ceremony which we shall describe in its place."

Less than two weeks later, during the return trip, Champlain made the following observations:

"Continuing our course, we arrived at the Chaudière Falls, where the savages had the accustomed ceremony, which is as follows:  after having carried their canoes below the falls, they get together in one place, where one of them, with a wooden plate, takes up a collection, and each one of them puts into this plate a piece of tobacco.  The collection made, the plate is put into the middle of the band, and all dance round it, singing in their fashion; then one of the chiefs makes a speech, showing that for a long time they have been accustomed to make this offering, and that by this means they are guaranteed against their enemies; that otherwise misfortune would befall them, as the devil has persuaded them; and that by this means they live in this superstition, as in several others, as we have said elsewhere. That done, the speaker takes the plate and goes and throws the tobacco into the middle of the caldron, and they raise a great cry all together.  These poor people are so superstitious that they do not expect to have a good journey if they have not had this ceremony in this place, for their enemies await them in this passage, not daring to advance farther because of the bad trails; and sometimes they surprise them there."