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 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 | 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...
by Nikki Rajala | Apr 16, 2020 | Featured
It’s a book. Want great info with lots of pix? You can’t go wrong with The Great Northwest Fur Trade: A Material Culture, 1763-1850, by Ryan R. Gale. It’s a fascinating compendium of solid information (like candy for people like me who LOVE fun...
by Nikki Rajala | Apr 2, 2020 | Voyageur
Has your concern during the pandemic COVID-19 made you curious about what medical remedies voyageurs used? It piqued my interest. Here’s what I found about their “physick.” “3 purges & 3 vomits” for whatever ails you By age 17, George Nelson was...
