by Nikki Rajala | Feb 25, 2021 | Voyageur
I need your ideas for Book 4. (Help me, François and Françoise — you’re my only hope!) In Book 3 (in progress): Instead of paddling with Antoine’s brigade, Andre fears he must stay at home and sees his life and career disappearing. But he lucks out with a...
by Nikki Rajala | Feb 3, 2021 | Voyageur
Singing. Sea shanties, sung by sailors on long journeys, have had great press lately — so you can see the tradition of work songs lives on! But wait — there’s more. The technique worked with voyageurs as well. Voyageurs, those jaunty hearty French-Canadian...
by Nikki Rajala | Jan 19, 2021 | Featured
Did you like reading the story of the Flying Canoe? Here’s the backstory: In print, the tale of the Flying Canoe, La Chasse Galerie dates back to 1891 but it was an old tale then and told across Canada.Some sources date it to Europe, and other versions have...
by Nikki Rajala | Jan 12, 2021 | Featured
What’s better on a cold night than to get cozy and hear an old story?. Here is a popular French-Canadian story — the tale of the Flying Canoe. (also known as La Chasse Galerie, The Bewitched Canoe and The Wild Hunt.) It’s New Year’s Eve at a far-flung...
by Nikki Rajala | Dec 12, 2020 | Voyageur
“What did voyageurs do for holidays like Christmas ?” was a question sometimes asked at my presentations. My short answer was “Not so much.” Our favorite holiday traditions hadn’t been invented yet, so none of the Ho-Ho-Ho Santa stuff, no tree or decorations, no...
