Voyageur

I. FURS AND FUR-TRADERS

I FURS AND FUR-TRADERS 1 2 ][ THE term voyageur, a French word meaning "traveler ," was applied originally in Canadian history to all explorers, fur-traders, and travelers. It came in time to be restricted to the men who operated the canoes and batteaux of fur-traders, and who, if serving at all as traders, labored as subordinates to a clerk or proprietor. Even as late as 18°7, however, the famous Beaver Club of Montreal, a group of prominent and, usually, successful fur-merchants or traders, balloted to determine whether its name should be changed to the Voyageur Club. Thus the term was somewhat vague, though always referring to men who had had actual experience in the fur trade among the Indians. In this book the term is restricted to French-Canadian canoemen. The French regi1Jle was responsible for the rise of this unique group of men. From the days of earliest exploration until 1763 a large part of what is now Canada and much of the rest of the continent west of the Appalachian Mountains was French territory. In this vast region lived the several tribes of Indians with whom the French settlers about Quebec and Montreal were not slow to barter furs. Beaver, marten, fox, lynx, bear, otter, wolf, muskrat, and many other furs were obtained. Furs were in great demand in Europe and Asia, and both the English colonists along the Atlantic seaboard and the French 3 THE VOYAGEUR in New France supported themselves in large part by means of a very flourishing fur trade. At first the Indians took their skins and furs down the St. Lawrence to Quebec and Montreal, whither annual fairs attracted them; but in the process of time ambitious traders intercepted the natives and purchased their furs in the interior, thus gaining an advantage over fellow traders. The enmity between the Iroquois and the Algonquin also tended to prevent the Indians from making their annual trips to the lower St. Lawrence, since the western tribes, who brought most of the furs, feared to pass down the river through enemy territory. When traders began to enter the Indian country, the voyageur may be said to have been born. Farther and farther up the St. Lawrence, up the Ottawa River, into lakes Huron and Michigan, the traders ventured. Erie and Ontario were explored, and finally Lake Superior. From these lakes more venturesome traders entered the rivers emptying into them and reached the Ohio and Illinois countries and the region about the Mississippi. They even found the rivers emptying into Lake Superior from the west and marked out the route by way of Rainy Lake into Lake Winnipeg. When Canada was lost to, the English in 1763, French posts were established far up the Saskatchewan, and French traders had seen the Rocky Mountains and knew of the "Oregon" River. On these trips westward the birch-bark canoe was almost the sole vehicle of transportation, and men from the hamlets on the lower St. Lawrence were the canoemen. Naturally the French Government found it necessary as time went on to establish rules and regulations for this 4 FURS AND FUR-TRADERS lucrative business. "Licenses (conges) to enter the Indian country were required; certain articles were prohibited in the trade; and only a specified number of traders might be licensed in one year. A man with sufficient capital to purchase a season's outfit acquired a license and hired men of his neighborhood to take the goods in canoes to the point at which the trader wished to sell his wares to the Indians. After bartering knives, beads, wampum , blankets, vermilion, and numberless trinkets and other articles for furs worth infinitely more in monetary value, these subtraders returned to their proprietor with the results of their transactions. The French term for the proprietor was bourgeols, and for the subtrader voyageur. The latter in time became a general term covering the mangeur de lard ("pork-eater") and the hlvernant ("winterer"). The former were the novices, the men who could be entrusted only with the management of the canoes and who for that reason returned home each season . The hlvernants were experienced voyageurs who spent the winters at posts in the interior, exchanging trade goods for furs under the direction of a commls. The latter was a clerk who was training to become a...