by Nikki Rajala | Aug 31, 2026 | Voyageur
When my sisters visited Canada a few years ago, they presented me with this gift card from the flagship Hudson’s Bay Company store. HBC was founded in 1670, first serving the fur trade and later the public with fascinating department stores I loved the trademark...
by Nikki Rajala | Aug 1, 2026 | Voyageur
This book came out a year ago. It’s taken me more than a year to consolidate my thoughts into a post. While I requested permission to reprint images and quotes, I never heard back, so the only artistry I can show are the covers of Gawboy’s work. “Fur Trade...
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 | Apr 4, 2026 | Voyageur
Imagine traveling hundreds of miles from winding rivers and rapids to vast inland lakes, carrying everything you need in a vessel made entirely from bark, roots and wood — a birch bark canoe. They were genius — objects deceptively simple, yet perfectly engineered by...
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...
