by Nikki Rajala | Feb 15, 2022 | Voyageur
What if — as a voyageur — you didn’t love pea soup, the only food provisioned by the French-Canadian fur companies, your twice-a day meal for 6 weeks on the Ottawa and Mattawa Rivers? After 94 meals, your brigade would have been down to its last cup of dried...
by Nikki Rajala | Jan 26, 2022 | Voyageur
What voyageurs ate depended mostly on where they were — along the rivers, in the Great Lakes, at their wintering post or back home. In the earliest days, Radisson, Champlain, Pond and other French-Canadian explorers and adventurers hunted and fished — and traded with...
by Nikki Rajala | Dec 11, 2021 | Voyageur
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...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 31, 2021 | Voyageur
My novels focus on the voyageurs as they paddled from Canada. But what were French-Canadian villages like? At Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, we spent three days experiencing what one may have felt like. There were hundreds of take-aways. To give you a flavor, Jean Day...
by Nikki Rajala | Sep 25, 2021 | Voyageur
Beads were the smallest of the trade goods that the French-Canadian voyageurs carried. Tiny as they were, they packed a punch with color, sparkle and the myriad unique ways they could be combined. (I know — I love earrings and their pop of color and style.) Native...