Voyageur

V. FORT LIFE

V FORT LIFE 75 76 v THE first duty of voyageurs on reaching their wintering ground was to erect a fort, unless, of course, the post was already established and supplied with buildings. A consultation was frequently held with the chief Indians as to the best site. When this was determined, a clearing was made, trees were cut and hewed in proper lengths, and a storehouse and "shop" were erected. Next came the clerk's house, then a house for the men, and finally a high stockade, the fort in local parlance. The day on which the great gate was hung and locked for the first time marked the completion of the post in the eyes of the men. Other buildings, such as a roothouse or a magazine, might be added, and a flagstaff was always put up in the enclosure. Often a well was dug within the stockade. Chimneys of mud and sticks or mud and stones were put up at the ends of the dwellings, and roofs were thatched with boughs held down by poles or sticks. Nails were expensive and heavy to bring into the interior, and so the logs were held in place in a unique way. Grooves were .cut in logs set upright at each corner of the foundation. Down these grooves were slipped the ends of the wall logs, which were cut to fit exactly between the uprights. Thus one log lay in place above another, all being held in position by the vertical 10gs.1 A certain kind of white clay served admirably in place of plaster and whitewash 77 THE VOYAGEUR and gave a neat appearance to the interiors. A puncheon floor was laid, bunks were constructed against the walls, rough tables and stools were made, and a window or two was filled with oiled deerskin in lieu of glass. Such a cabin, filled with the odors of game roasting on a blazing .grate which flung fantastic shadows over guns, knives, and snowshoes on the walls, was not an unhomelike place, and it was the prototype of many a pioneer's home as the frontier moved westward. From a diary kept during the winter of 1804-05 on a branch of the St. Croix River, within the present boundaries of Minnesota, something of an idea of the time required for building a fort may be drawn.2 Three, possibly four, buildings were erected in three weeks. Four chimneys are mentioned; these required fouf days. The "masonry" of them, however, to use the clerk's term, was completed in two days. A few weeks later one of them caught fire and had to be repaired. The "covering" of the houses apparently took two days. The "flooring" of both houses and the plastering of the clerk's residence consumed :five days. Three weeks after the first tree was felled the clerk wrote in his journal, "This evening entered my dwelling House." It must have been unfinished within, however, for two evenings later he recorded , "Men finished my Bed Room." At this point All Saints' Day with its "enchanting Weather" caused a temporary halt. The usual dole of rum, one gallon in this case, was made, and the voyageurs "did no Work of course." On Sunday, November 4, twenty-six days after work was begun, the clerk recorded, "My Men entered their dwellings." The cutting of the stockade was begun 78 FORT LIFE on the seventh of November, and by the thirteenth the "Men began raising the Stockades." This was evidently a long process, for it was not till the twentieth that the clerk could enter in his diary that "the Doors of the Fort were fixd & Shut this Evening." All this time, apparently , the commt"s was doling out a dram morning and evening to each voyageur, for at the very outset he recorded : "men perform'd a great Days Work gave them each a Dram morning & Evening & promised to do the same till our Buildings are Compleated provided the[y] exert themselves." The site of a fort was chosen with several requirements in mind. It must be near Indian villages; it must be readily accessible from the highways of trade; usually it must be on a stream or lake well stocked with fish, the staple diet of the wintering fur-traders; and wood for building and fuel purposes must be at hand. In the region beyond the Mississippi the feeding grounds of...