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 | Nov 18, 2020 | Featured
At school programs, girls usually ask, “What about girls in the fur trade—were they ever ‘voyageurs’?” Oui, mademoiselle — but not as paddlers. Nearly all women in the fur trade were Aboriginal, invaluable allies who scraped beaver pelts, dried fish and...
by Nikki Rajala | Oct 21, 2020 | Voyageur
As it’s coming on wintry weather, did you ever wonder — What were the voyageurs doing 200 years ago in this season? But of course you did. By October they’d returned to their posts with loads of new goods from the rendezvous, ready to start trading. What...
by Nikki Rajala | Sep 3, 2020 | Voyageur
Are you drawn to the night sky? I’ve read that stars and humans contain most of the elements, that we’ve received those elements through supernovas, so we are truly “star people.” Star Bill and Star Nikki enjoyed this summer’s spectacular NEOWISE...
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...
