by Nikki Rajala | Aug 17, 2020 | Voyageur
After I recently wrote a blog post about Fun Facts about Beavers, I got to wondering: 1. How many pelts did a single Native trapper bring in? 2. How many packs of pelts did the winterers at a fur post bring to the rendezvous? 3.What was the yearly take for the fur...
by Nikki Rajala | Jul 23, 2020 | Voyageur
“Hiding in a copse, the lad held his breath as a half-dozen warriors dashed past. He dare not move, seeing only their feet. Uh-oh! Not moccasins like the friendly Wyandottes wore! Enemies!” Two weeks later, in another book, “Hanta Yo, ”I read about an adept tracker...
by Nikki Rajala | Jul 6, 2020 | Voyageur
“What’s that terrible odor?” we asked ourselves while biking past the nearby Sauk River. We gingerly investigated: a roadkill beaver. Encrusted in flies, this one had died a day or more earlier. Is it ironic that this is the first almost-live beaver...
by Nikki Rajala | Jun 10, 2020 | Featured
Did you read biographies as a kid? Bigfork’s tiny public library had one shelf of biographies for youth, 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...
by Nikki Rajala | May 25, 2020 | Voyageur
If you have voyageurs in your French-Canadian ancestry, some of your forebears may be from Sorel. The hamlet provided many engages for the fur trade, actually. Why? Did some towns send more of their sons than others? And what attracted the men to doing such hard labor...