by Nikki Rajala | Sep 27, 2026 | Voyageur
Q: What gave the voyageurs hope against impossible odds? A: Two things: Protection from Ste. Anne, supplemented by a wealth of Native lore and seafaring beliefs. Peter Pond, describing his brigade’s departure in 1773: (Read Pond’s words aloud to better...
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 8, 2019 | Voyageur
Voyageurs had pensions?! Who’d a thunk it? A while back I wrote a blog post about perusing a website listing info from 35,000 voyageur contracts. Near the bottom of some contracts I found this intriguing line: “s’oblige de contribuer d’ un par cent sur ses...
by Nikki Rajala | Nov 11, 2018 | Featured
The tag on my website is “Nikki Rajala: writer, speaker, voyageur descendant.” So, who are those voyageurs I descended from? More importantly for you, might there be voyageurs in your family tree? Confession: I haven’t yet pored through microfilms of...
