by Nikki Rajala | May 22, 2026 | Voyageur
John Macdonell was born in Scotland in 1768, and his family migrated to New York in 1773 and then to Canada. He began his first trading venture in 1793, when he was 25. His diary describes his impressions of voyageur life. In this section, he has been on the...
by Nikki Rajala | Feb 16, 2026 | Featured
For youth, Bigfork’s tiny public library had one short shelf of biographies, jacketed in red and yellow, illustrated with black and white drawings. After finishing the life stories of all the women (maybe 7 total), I kept on, reading about men like Lewis and...
by Nikki Rajala | Nov 6, 2025 | Voyageur
A few years ago at a presentation, someone asked me: Why were French-Canadian voyageurs’ paddles red? We considered a few possibilities: Was it to show them how deep they should paddle? Not really — within a few hours of paddling, even newbie voyageurs would...
by Nikki Rajala | Aug 15, 2025 | Voyageur
Could a voyageur climb the fur trade ladder and get a powerful job? Non, c’est impossible. A glass ceiling existed. There were strong class and caste restrictions in place, and it was impossible to transcend them. Reading, writing and mathematics skills were...
by Nikki Rajala | Jul 13, 2025 | Voyageur
“A Canadian, if born to be a labourer, deems himself to be very unfortunate if he … shall reach five feet ten or eleven, it forever excludes him from the privilege of becoming voyageur. There is no room for the legs of such people in these canoes, But if he shall stop...
