Q: How did voyageurs celebrate Christmas ? 
A: Not like we do.
Our favorite holiday traditions hadn’t been invented yet, so no Ho-Ho-Hos, no Santa, no tree or decorations, no cookies or concerts, no Nutcracker or Christmas Carol performances, no Grinch or Charlie Brown, no Hallmark movies.
In the early 1800s, French-Canadians only observed religious holidays, only by going to church.

Tourtieres are pork pies, spiced with cloves, allspice, cinnamon …

From “Chez Nous,” (a newsletter for French-Canadians descendants, the Janvier y Fevrier 1985 edition), I discovered that New Year’s Day, Le jour de l’an, was just as important a feast day in French Canada:

  • Families knelt for a blessing from their patriarch, kissed the female members and went out visiting friends and neighbors.
  • Gifts were exchanged between adults, because children’s gifts were delivered by the croque mitaine. (“the mitten biter,” who I’d previously thought of as a bogeyman!)
  • The day was full of storytelling, like the Flying Canoe, and was capped with a festive dinner.
  • Dozens of tourtieres, spiced pork pies, and doughnuts were readied to further celebrate Le jour des rois, the days between Christmas and Jan. 6, or Epiphany.

I perused the old journals in “Five Fur Traders of the Northwest” to learn what North West Company men did on Christmas Day.
SURPRISE! T
he groups didn’t mix: Because the bourgeois were English or Scottish, they didn’t socialize much with their winterers, the French-Canadian paddlers and workers. (Read on; the spelling and capitalization are theirs.)

  • Archibald McLeod, a partner at Swan River, Canada, was frustrated being asked to supply (gun)powder, tobacco and salt to another Swan River post which was destitute. “Santa McLeod” conceded and gave them tobacco and 2 pair of shoes each!

    Voyageurs celebrated vigorously with liquor, with not-so-great results.

    Jan 1, 1801. Being Christmas I gave the men a dram.”

  • John Sayers, a partner at Snake River, Minnesota, offered the traditional liquor which had its unfortunate consequences—several battles! Then the day’s trade proceeded.
    Tuesday, Dec. 25, 1804. Cloudy with Snow at 10 AM La Prairie came & paid me a Visit. good accts from his post, this being Christmas Day gave a treat of Rum &c to my Men which occasiond several Battles. Bellaire brot 2 Deers from Peaux Dourson.”
  • Hugh Faries, a clerk at Rainy Lake, Canada and Minnesota, began with a breakfast beverage, and did business as usual the rest of the day.
    Tuesday, Dec. 25, 1804. “This morning I gave each of the men a dram, at breakfast they began to buy rum and drank until 12 o’clock at night. Some of the X.Y. Men came down. …”

Daniel Harmon

Daniel Harmon, an American, became a North West Company clerk at age 21 and kept records of his career trading with the Cree in Manitoba and British Colombia in the book “Sixteen Years in the Indian Country: The Journal of Daniel Williams Harmon 1800-1816.”
He didn’t mention Christmas on more than half of those entries. His first years were discouraging, without conversation with like-minded people. He spoke French to the men and Cree to his Cree wife, who was 14 when they married; she learned English.
Eventually the couple found a few friends, and ways to share the holy days with them: they read the Bible, they hosted and visited others, they shared meals (with the chiefs too), they danced, they took the cariole out for dogsled rides! Life got considerably better.

1803, Ft. Alexandria
Dec. 25, Sunday. This being Christmas Day our people pay no further attention to Worldly affairs than to Drink all Day. Notwithstanding I am now in a Savage Country, yet I cannot forget that in my earlier Days I was taught to believe that this Day ought to be kept as a Day of thanksgiving in commemoration

Daniel Harmon preferred to spend the holy day in prayer and thanksgiving.

for the Birth of a Saviour … yet for all that I cannot flatter myself that I do observe the Day very differently from my associates.”

1805, South Branch House
Dec. 25, Wednesday. This Day has been passed as all Christmas are in this abandoned part of the World, Drinking all Day by our Men and Dancing in the evening by all hands.”

1806, South Branch House
Dec. 25, Thursday. As the greater part of our People are now absent from the Fort, I have in some measure been able to pass this Day somewhat like an accountable being and a Christian—that is in reading and in meditating on the birth &c. of our Saviour. In the morning I invited over Messrs. Fidler & Sutherland to breakfast with me.” …

Harmon dined with friends on a few Christmases.

1812, Stuarts Lake
Jan.1 Wednesday.Mr. McDougall & I dined with all of our People in the Hall, and after our repast was over I invited several of the Sicanny (Sekani) and Carrier Chiefs & most respectable Men among them to come and partake of what we had remaining — and I must acknowledge that I was surprised to see them behave with so much decency & even propriety as they did in drinking off a Flaggon or two of Rum, and after their repast was over they smoaked their Pipes and conversed rationally on the great difference there is between the manners & customs of Civilized People and those of Savages. They readily conceded that ours are superior to theirs.” …

1813, Stuarts Lake
Dec. 20 Sunday. Mr. (James?) McDougall &c arrived from McLeods Lake and are come to pass the Holy Days with us.” …
Dec. 24, Thursday. On the 20th Inst, Messrs McDougall & LaRoque &c accompanied me to the other end of this Lake, each of us was in a Cariol (cariole) drawn by three Dogs and as the road was fine (upon smooth Ice) we had a pleasant excursion.”

1815-16, Fraser’s Lake

Harmon’s cariole was a covered sled pulled by dogs.


Dec. 27. Wednesday: All of us except two of our People who remain here to take care of the Fort, are preparing to go & pass New Year’s at Stuarts Lake, and during the few Days we have been together I have past the time agreeable in the company of my two friends. ” …


Jan. 7. Sunday: This afternoon I returned from Stuarts Lake where I remained Six Days but the concourse of People being too great to allow us to indulge ourselves much in such conversation as we would have wished.”

Combining their resources

The Christmas spirit allowed bitter rivals of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company to invite each other with occasional restrictions.

  • Voyageurs and First Americans danced in celebration.


    On Christmas Day 1794, William McKay (HBC) noted in his daily log regarding his NWC competitor: “Mr. Boyer invited me & men to a dance.”
  • On New Year’s Day in 1824, John McLaughlin (HBC trader on the Rainy River) gave a dance to which he invited the American Fur Company trader and the women of his post — but not any of their husbands. 

How the voyageurs observed Christmas depended on whether you were a worker-bee or a muckety-muck. The voyageurs relaxed with drinking and merriment (with disagreements). While the bourgeois missed deep conversation and sacred ceremonies, they found ways to see friends, eat, dance and dogsled — and be merry.

Final Thoughts

Sources:

Harmon’s Journal 1800-1819; Daniel Williams Harmon, a Partner in the North West Company” Touch Wood Editions (Toronto, Canada, 2006). Originally published as “A Journal of the Voyages and travels in the Interior of North America” by Daniel Williams Harmon in Andover, Massachusetts in 1820. And as “Sixteen Years in the Indian Country: The Journal of Daniel Williams Harmon 1800-1816.” MacMillan Co. of Canada Ltd, (Toronto, Ontario, 1957).

Five Fur Traders of the Northwest, being the Narrative of Peter Pond and the Diaries of John Macdonnel, Archibald. N. McLeod, Hugh Faries and Thomas Connor (John Sayers)” edited by Charles M. Gates. Minnesota Historical Society Press (St. Paul, 1965).

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