Voyageur’s Blog
Ask a voyageur a question
Here’s a blog to answer your questions, like what was life like during the 1800s in French Canada? Like who could or couldn’t be a voyageur? How big the canoes were? What trade goods they carried? What different furs were worth? What they used for medicine? I’ll answer these and more in the “A Voyageur’s Life” blog. Click on the button below to ask your question or go to the “Contact” section of this site — I’ll find the answers.
Cricket cuisine? Really?
The March-April 2018 issue of the Minnesota Conservation “Volunteer” magazine had a surprising article in “Crunch Goes the Cricket” — insects as a potential, sustainable and nutritious food source. They are packed with protein. (If only my starving voyageur characters...
What REALLY happens at a rendezvous?
In the 1800s, the rendezvous was celebrated as canoe brigades brought in trade goods from Lachine or trading posts brought in furs. Before they swapped cargoes, it was time to connect with friends and relax with voyageur games.
Why do voyageurs and the fur trade draw you?
It's in my blood—I'm descended from voyageurs. Mom found listings of a dozen engagés, or canoemen, through genealogy research into her French-Canadian roots. My grandfather, a younger son of a younger son of a voyageur, told of his connection: His great grandfather...
‘New’ is actually old — using credit began during the fur trade
My sister Kris visited Winnipeg last year and presented me with this gift card from the flagship Hudson’s Bay Company store. Love the trademark stripes — and carrying it around. Then I realized, “How apt!” Because the fur trade popularized the system of commercial...
More "wild" proteins
I have a few more thoughts for my characters to get wild protein (from the U.S. Army Survival Manual): All trails lead to water. Trails may be marked with animal droppings and trampled terrain. Birds: Flocks of birds will circle over waterholes. Some birds fly to...
You can eat that?
The U.S. Army Survival Manual’s first chapter said, “With few exceptions, everything that grows from the soil or that walks, crawls, or swims is a potential food source.” WOW! Up to then, I’d only thought about plants. The book included useful tips on how to capture...
No wonder Nikki Rajala writes about voyageurs—her French-Canadian ancestors paddled birch bark canoes on many fur trade brigades. One great-great wintered for 16 years in fur posts west of Lake Superior and threads of family stories infuse this book. On Girl Scout canoe expeditions as a teen, she explored Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park. Nikki loves rendezvous re-enactments, reading fur trade journals, visiting museums, tasting voyageur foods.
