Category Archives: Voyageurs

The Red River Settlement. 2

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, Fur Trade, pemmican, Voyageurs

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Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post was part of a longer post: Louis Riel, Hero or Rebel. It is also related to posts one can find under The Voyageurs Posts, Aboriginals in North America and the two Canadiana posts: Canadiana.1 and Canadiana.2. These are pages. It is also associated to The Red River Settlement, a post. Yet, somehow, it is new.

In The Red River Settlement, I wrote about the conflict that arose between the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC, established in 1670) and the North West Company (NWC, established in 1789). York Factory, the HBC’s trading post, was too distant a location for Amerindians. In the words of one critic, Joseph Robson,

the Hudson’s Bay Company ‘have for eighty years slept at the edge of a frozen sea; they have shewn no curiosity to penetrate farther themselves, and have exerted all their art and power to crush that spirit in others to take pelts to fur traders.’

Therefore, the HBC built trading posts inland and started to use riverways and employ  voyageurs. Wikipedia has a complete list of HBC trading posts.

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Winter Fishing on the Ice by Peter Rindisbacher, 1821 (Photocredit: Wikipedia)

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Summer View in the environs of the Company Fort Douglas on the Red River by Peter Ridinsbacher, 1822 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Riverways were the highways of the day, which I noted in an earlier post, hence the lots of the Red River Colony being narrow and deep. Inhabitants had their boat, a canoe, “at the ready” at the river end of their lot. Swiss-born Artist Peter Ridinsbacher  left a visual testimonial of this juxtaposition of lots. In the images above, one can see the canoes at the river end of narrow lots and adjoining houses. The ice was also used in winter. Peter Rindisbacher lived in the Red River Settlement at the time the fur companies, Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company  were merged, in 1821.

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American Indian hunting buffalo  by Peter Rindisbacher, circa 1830  (Photo credit: Alamy)

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Buffalo hunting in the summer by Peter Rindisbacher, 1822 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Earl of Selkirk settles the Red River Colony

  • the Earl of Selkirk
  • the end of the fur trade
  • crofters
  • the great plains

This story has a happy beginning, despite glitches and the disastrous Battle of Seven Oaks.

The Earl of Selkirk, a philanthropist, set about finding land for the Scottish crofters  who had lost their home. Many settled in Nova Scotia, i. e. New Scotland. My neighbours, Dr Cecil MacLean, professor of French at St. Francis Xavier, and the Honourable Allan J. MacEachen, one of the finest politicians in the history of Canada, were both descendants of crofters. Mr MacEachen spoke Gaelic. The video inserted at the bottom of this post tells the story of crofters Lord Selkirk helped relocate to the Red River Colony. The crofters would live in the Canadian great plains which was fine territory for farmers. They were excellent recruits.

In order to acquire the land he needed to found the Red River Colony, the Earl of Selkirk and his family bought a large number of shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). In fact, the Earl of Selkirk became the majority shareholder.

The fur trade was drawing to a close for want of beavers, which meant a complete change of lifestyle for voyageurs. Retired voyageurs, such as Louis Riel’s grandparents, Jean-Baptiste Lagimonière or Lagimodière and Marie-Anne Gaboury, settled in the future Winnipeg, However, many young voyageurs did not prove suited to farming. So, as the fur trade declined, they became guides to explorers in search of the Northwest Passage and a way to the Pacific Ocean, north of the South Pass (Wyoming). Truth be told, voyageurs and Amerindians opened up the continent, but as employees rather than employers. They were employed by explorers.

Settling the Red River Colony was extremely difficult. Allow me to quote Wikipedia:

In July 1811 Miles Macdonell sailed from Yarmouth, England to the Hudson’s Bay post at York Factory with 36 primarily Irish and Scottish settlers. Due to persuasive efforts of the North West Company only 18 settlers actually arrived at Red River in August 1812. As the planting season had ended before the settlers could complete the construction of Fort Douglas, they were forced to hunt bison for food and were completely unprepared for the arrival of 120 additional settlers in October.

(See the Red River Colony, or Assiniboia, Wikipedia.)

In short, although crofters —farmers, were excellent recruits to the great plains, they had to face hunger. They needed pemmican from the nearly extinct “buffalo.” Pemmican was the food of the fur trade and it would also be the food of explorers. Amerindians and Métis prepared pemmican for voyageurs. Voyageurs were customers.

However, newcomers faced not only hunger, but also the coldest and harshest winters in Canada, south of the Arctic. I lived in Regina, Saskatchewan, for a year and loved it, but it was cold. However, the worst our new Canadians had to cope with, other than memories of a lost land, were warring factions: the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), chartered in May 1670 (at first, a fur-trading company), and its rival, the North West Company (NWC), founded in 1789 and headquartered in Montreal.

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The Red River and the Assiniboine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Fort William (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Northwest Passage Routes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Regiments, Rindisbacher and Ermatinger

In the first edition of this post, I failed to note that, in 1816, several disbanded members of the Régiment de Meuron, or Meurons, “a regiment of infantry originally raised in Switzerland in 1781” and commanded by Charles-Daniel de Meuron, mercenaries (i.e. professional soldiers), chose to settle in the Red Riv er Colony. (See Régiment de Meuron, Wikipedia). They had seen action in India, as a British Infantry, in Canada, under Sir James Charles Prévost, at the Battle of Plattsburgh, during the War of 1812, and in the Red River Colony, as discharged soldiers in the Pemmican War.” In 1816, when the regiment was disbanded, half of De Meurons‘ 640-men strong infantry settled in Canada and many chose to live in the Red River Colony. So did members of the disbanded De Watteville’s Regiment.

Later, some of its [Régiment de Meuron] soldiers also served at the Red River Colony. Some 150 recently discharged soldiers from the Régiment de Meuron and De Watteville’s Regiment, still retaining their uniforms, participated in the Pemmican War. Rue des Meurons in the Winnipeg suburb of Saint Boniface is named after the regiment.

(See Régiment de Meuron, Wikipedia.)

Among recruits to the Red River Colony was the family of Swiss artist Peter Ridinsbacher, whose lovely watercolours depicting Aboriginals, Métis, and the Red River Colony are a precious legacy. The Ridinsbachers lived in Assiniboina or the Red River Colony. Their home was flooded in 1826, which was calamitous. Peter’s family decided to leave Assiniboina, or the Red River Colony, for the United States. (See 1826 Red River Flood, Wikipedia). They therefore moved to Wisconsin, but ended up settling in St. Louis, Missouri, where Peter died, “possibly of cholera,” (Wikipedia) at the age of 28.

Another inhabitant of Assiniboina was Swiss musician Edward Ermatinger, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee who ended up settling in St. Thomas, Ontario. His collection of the words and music of French Canadian folksongs, the voyageurs répertoire, as well as a “Red River March” he composed, may be the only connection to have come down to us.

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The Battle of Seven Oaks by Charles William Jefferys (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Battle of Seven Oaks

Our fur trading companies competed not only for the best and the most pelts, but they also needed pemmican.

On 8 January 1814, fearing famine, Miles Macdonell, who was appointed first governor of Assiniboia, the Red River Colony, in 1811, issued the Pemmican Proclamation. The Pemmican Proclamation forbade the exportation of food from the Red River Colony (HBC territory), which angered both the Métis and employees of the North West Company. They believed it was a ploy on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Six months later, Miles Macdonnell also issued a proclamation banning the “running” of buffalo with horses.

Hostilities culminated in the Battle of Seven Oaks (The Canadian Encyclopedia). A group of Métis had retrieved pemmican from the Hudson’s Bay Company, claiming it had been stolen. The canoes came down the Assiniboine escorted by Cuthbert Grant, an Anglo-Métis, who was the son of Cuthbert Grant père, a Nor’Wester from Scotland, and a Métis mother. Young Cuthbert was educated in Scotland.

On 19 June 1816, a band of Nor’Westers, Métis mainly, led by Cuthbert Grant (NWC) was returning from retrieving pemmican allegedly stolen by the Hudson’s Bay Company. They were to meet Nor’Westers at Fort William, but were intercepted by Robert Semple who had replaced Miles Macdonell. Semple was the governor of Rupert’s Land. A Nor’Wester, François-Firmin Boucher, was dispatched to speak to Robert Semple’s men. Someone fired a gun. Reports suggest the shot was fired by one of Semple’s men. A battle ensued which took 21 lives, including the life of Robert Semple. Only one of Cuthbert Grant’s men was killed, a 16-year-old. Discouraged, many settlers left the Red River Colony the very next day. François-Firmin Boucher spent two years in prison, but the Métis were exonerated by W. B. Coltman, a Royal Commissioner. (See The Battle of Seven Oaks, Wikipedia, Coltman’s Report, and  Transcribing the Coltman Report – Crowdsourcing at Library and Archives Canada, posted on .)

Métis songwriter Pierre Falcon wrote a song about the Battle of Seven Oaks:  La Chanson de la Grenouillère, grenouille meaning frogs. (See The Minnesota Heritage Songbook.)

The Bison

The animal that roamed the great plains was often called a buffalo, which was a misnomer i.e. the wrong name. To tell the difference between the bison and the buffalo, Britannica suggests focusing on the three H’s: “home, hump, and horns.” Bison have a hump and their horns are shorter. Bison, not buffaloes, therefore lived in the great plains of North America. Interestingly, French Canadians call(ed) the buffalo a bison, which happens to be the correct name. For a very long time, I thought bison was the French translation of buffalo. It isn’t. The buffalo is un buffle in French and bison is both a French and an English word. Bison does not have a plural in English.

Conclusion

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 empowered Amerindians and Métis. We do not know whether or not Métis residents of the Red River took the Pemmican Proclamation seriously. But it could be they didn’t. As I suggested in Louis Riel, Hero or Rebel, it is altogether possible Louis Riel looked upon his government as genuine and the execution of Thomas Scott as legitimate. But he was blamed. He could not take his seat in the House of Commons and he hid for fifteen years. Rupert’s Land belonged to North-American Indians, but colonists felt entitled to land that did not belong to them but which they claimed and then sold. John A. Macdonald’s government bought Rupert’s Land.

As for the settlers who left the Red River after the The Battle of Seven Oaks, they made the right decision, but thousands of United Empire Loyalists, those who would not live in an independent United States, took refuge in the British colony immediately north of the fledgling United States.

Despite difficult beginnings, The Red River Settlement would be a permanent settlement. We have a Winnipeg and a Saint Boniface. In the late 1860s, when Canada or William MacDougall and surveyors entered their community, the varied inhabitants of the future Winnipeg lived peacably. The Earl of Selkirk died in 1820. His death allowed a merger of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company (1821), and ended a merciless conflict.

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Sources and Resources 

Biographies


Love to everyone and Joyeuses Pâques, Happy Easter ♥
____________________

[1] Amy Tikkanen, What’s the Difference Between Bison and Buffalo? The Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-bison-and-buffalo

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Arrival of Settlers at the Red River (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
1st April 2018
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The Singing Voyageurs

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Art, Canadian History, Voyageurs

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Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow, July 25, 1821, by Sir George Back

Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow by Sir George Back, 25 July 1821, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More on the voyageur’s personality

The explorers left testimonials about the voyageur’s personality. According to Sir John Franklin, they were “creatures of the moment.” Sir George Simpson writes that they loved to eat and that, if a piece of equipment was good, they said that it came from France or “la vieille France de Londres,” London’s old France, and were “witty.” [i]

Sir George Back (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for the explorers, they knew the name of every single one of their voyageurs. Most of these explorers came from Scotland. Obviously the Scots and the voyageurs got along very well. By the way, the gentleman who lost so many of his voyageurs was Admiral Sir George Back, FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society] (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878). I have therefore edited my last post accordingly and, in doing so, I discovered that Sir George Back was an excellent artist.

When they were working for explorers, the voyageurs may have transported pelts. However, when employed by explorers such as Simon Fraser and Sir Alexander MacKenzie, they did not. They were simply finding their way, dangerously, to the Pacific. At that time, they also worked for travellers who were gathering information on Canada.

HMS Terror Thrown up by Ice by Sir George Back

The Singing Voyageur

The voyageurs did sing. We know for certain that they sang mostly old French songs and that their favourite song was “À la claire fontaine.” During the ten years he was in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1819-1829), Edward Ermatinger (1797-1876) collected eleven voyageur songs. They are traditional folksongs.

As for songs composed by the voyageurs, we know of three:

  • Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  • Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis), (Pierre Falcon),
  • Le Six mai de l’année dernière (Last Year on the Sixth of May).

The Bois-Brûlés were Dakota Amerindians.  As for the Sixth of May, that was the date on which the voyageurs left for “les pays d’en-haut,”  the north or, literally, the countries above.

These were published in the Beaver, a Canadian journal, by Marius Barbeau, the “founder of Canadian anthropology.” There can be no doubt that these songs are authentic voyageur songs.

Moreover, Grace Lee Nute lists voyageur songs. For the most part, the songs she discusses are well-known traditional folksongs. There are two exceptions:

  • C’est dans la ville de Bytown [Ottawa] (It’s in the town of Ottawa)
  • Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs)

Parmi les voyageurs is unquestionably a voyageur song. However, loggers also left from Ottawa. They too had to find a living and left for the winter to work as lumberjacks.  As a result, C’est dans la ville de Bytown could be a forestier song or both a voyageur and forestier song. Forestiers worked in the lumber industry. They were lumberjacks or river drivers, riding the wood down riverways.

Sadly, W. F. Wentzel’s collection of voyageur songs has been lost. W. F. Wentzel, a  Norwegian trader of the far North West, was also a fine musician. He therefore transcribed voyageur songs that could have been an extremely valuable source to later generations of collectors and ethnologists.

Let us read Grace Lee Nute:

“It is a great pity nevertheless, that Wentzel’s large collection of these songs has not survived. His musical gifts added to his unusual command of languages would surely have made the collection invaluable. Moreover, he collected the songs of the voyageurs, and “mentions the indecorous quality of some of their [the voyageurs’] songs.” [ii]

Also lost are the songs of Pierre Falcon, except Les Bois Brûlés, an account of the Battle of Seven Oaks. Falcon wrote canoe songs that have probably been destroyed due to their ‘smutty’ character. Métis called themselves Bois Brûlés. They were not as dark as Amerindians.

Fortunately, we still have the eleven songs that Edward Ermatinger collected.

____________________

[i] Quoted by Nute in The Voyageur (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987 [1931]), pp. 244 and 255.

[ii] “Mr W. F. Wentzel, Letters to the Hon. Roderic McKenzie, 1807-1824,” in Masson, Les Bourgeois, 1:71. Quoted in Nute’s The Voyageur, p. 155.

I am including, below, Blanche comme la neige, a folksong. Sir Ernest MacMillan composed a choral setting of this song. I do not have Sir Ernest’s setting, but we have the song. Blanche comme la neige is featured as a Christmas song, but it could be a song about winter and purity. It tells the story of a young woman who feigned death not to be raped. She is placed in a coffin and discovered, three days later, by her father. She tells him she has preserved her virginity: “pour mon honneur garder,” (to keep my honour).

One of the McGarrigle sisters died in 2010. It saddens me to know that they are now forever separated. Besides, it is difficult to find good renditions of folksongs.  I do not know the origin of Ce matin.

Portage

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© Micheline Walker
18 January 2012
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John Jacob Astor & the Voyageur as Settler and Explorer

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canada, Explorers, Voyageurs

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Signing of the Treaty of Ghent. Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier is shaking hands with United States Ambassador to Russia John Quincy Adams; British Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Henry Goulburn is carrying a red folder. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Treaty of Ghent, 1814

In my last post, I mentioned Dr Bigsby. The Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, put an end to the War of 1812, a war between the British and the Americans.  Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, an official border had to be drawn between Canada (British) and the Union (American). Our Dr Bigsby was with the Commission whose members drew the border between Canada and the United States. Also engaged in drawing the border was Simon Fraser, an explorer. (See Treaty of 1818, Wikipedia)

Because many voyageurs worked with the Hudson’s Bay Company, it could be that our canotier was among the last persons to realize that Nouvelle-France had become a British colony.

However, the voyageur‘s world changed when the border was traced between Canada and the United States. Moreover, because of the Louisiana Purchase, the central part of the United States was no longer a French colony. Napoléon had sold a third of what constitutes the present-day United States.

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The Purchase was one of several territorial additions to the U.S. (See Louisiana Purchase, Wikipedia)

Louisiana: the green area (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Consequences

Following the The Louisiana purchase, 1803 and the Treaty of Ghent, 1814, Grand-Portage ceased to be part of a territory that had been considered French or English territory. Settlers would soon begin arriving in both Manitoba, a British possession, and in Minnesota. As for our voyageur, he had to use other trading-posts and was still in the employ of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The American Fur Trade Company, 1808

At this point, the United States entered the fur-trade business. On 6 April 1808, John Jacob Astor (17 July 1763 – 29 March 1848), German (Waldesians)- born Johann Jakob Astor, established the American Fur Company and also established the Pacific Fur Company.  Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob’s employee and his successor, hired American canoemen, but his employer would never have become the richest man in the world had  Congress not allowed him to hire Canadiens.

The Americans recruited by Ramsay Crooks did not prove equal to the task. They could not work in unison. They carried guns, quarreled among themselves, and killed North-American Indians. So Ramsay Crooks decided that an exception had to be made to the Embargo Act of 1807.

Ramsay Crooks therefore wrote to Astor:

“It will still be good policy to admit freely & without the last restraint the Canadian Boatmen. these people are indispensable to the succesful prosecution of the trade, their places cannot be supplied by Americans, who are for the most part are [sic] are too independent to submit quiety to a proper controul, and who can gain any where a subsistence much superior to a man of the interior and although the body of the Yankee can resist as much hardshiip as any man, tis only in the Canadian we find that temper of mind, to render him patient docile and persevering. in short they are a people harmless in themselves whose habit of submission fit them peculiarly for our business and if guided as it is my wish they should be, will never give just cause of alarm to the Government of the Union it is of course your object to exclude foreigner except those for whom you obtaine licences.” [i]

As a result, during Thomas Jefferson‘s presidency, the American Fur Company was allowed to employ Canadian voyageurs, which it did, with considerable success, for twenty years. In fact, John Jacob Astor, whose great-grandson perished in the sinking of the Titanic, had a fine employee in Gabriel Franchère (1786-1863). Franchère and voyageurs sailed to the mouth of the Columbia River. They travelled on the Tonquin, under the command of Jonathan Thorn, an impatient and hard man. The Tonquin left New York on 8 September 1810 and arrived at the Columbia River on 12 April 1811 to establish the first American-owned (if Canadian-staffed) outpost on the Pacific Coast, Fort Astoria (present-day Astoria, Oregon).” [ii] 

You will note that I have used bold letters to write “if Canadian-staffed.” Nute writes that “John Jacob Astor, the prince of American fur-traders and the organizer of the largest American fur company, is said to have remarked that he would rather have one voyageur than three American canoemen.” [iii]

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Note on Gabriel Franchère

When the American Fur Company surrendered to the North West Company, in 1812, Gabriel Franchère found his way back to Montreal where, temporarily, he remained in the employ of John Jacob Astor. Franchère is the author of a book entitled Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13, et 14 (Narrative of a trip to the American North West in the Years 1810, 11, 12, 13, and 14). It would seem that the book is the possession of Marianopolis College, in Westmount, Montreal. 

What I would like to point out here is that Franchère did not stay in Montreal. He returned west and died in Minnesota, where Astor’s men settled when they retired from what we could call “active duty.” It shoud also be pointed out that this was a most articulate gentleman who nevertheless worked as a mere clerk not to say voyageurs and had so loved his work that home had become Minnesota. As for voyageurs in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), most of its employees retired in neighbouring Manitoba (Canada).

The Explorers 

Beaver pelts had been very precious because they were used, among other things, to make hats. Remember the high hats. But as John Jacob Astor realized, the beaver had nearly become extinct, which for him meant abandoning the fur trade. As I have noted, a large proportion of his men settled in Minnesota when they could no longer carry two bales, or when steam boats replaced the canoe. They had opened up a very large number of forts and “[t]hey, with their traders, were thus the first white settlers of most of these areas.” [iv]

—ooo—

But what of the intrepid hommes du Nord, the North men, or young voyageurs?  As it happens, “[i]t was they, too, who did the actual exploring of the interior, for the greater explorer, like Alexander Henry, Jonathan Carver, and Alexander Mackenzie [who] relied on their canoemen for knowledge of navigable streams, portages, wintering grounds and other topographical features.” [v] 

A new canoe was used, mentioned in The Voyageur & his Canoe “The Kootenay-Salish canoe was built for the rapid rivers of southern BC [British Columbia], with both ends extending out under the water (art work by Lewis Parker).” [vi]

The Kootenay-Salish Canoe by Lewis Parker (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

In short, we have just learned about a third employer. As well, we saw that most voyageurs remained where they had worked, thereby becoming settlers, and that the more intrepid worked for explorers. I am sure that Simon Fraser had voyageurs in his employ when he chartered British Columbia. The Kootenay-Salish canoe was their canoe.

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Canoemen by David Morris

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Love to everyone ♥
_________________________

[i] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987[1931]), pp. 203-204.

[ii] Wikipedia, “Pacific Fur Company”           <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Fur_Company>

[iii] The Voyageurs, p. 6.

[iv] Nute, op. cit., p. 10.

[v]  Ibid.

[vi] James Marsch, “The Birchbark Canoe,” in the Canadian Encyclopedia <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/birchbark-canoe-1>

Un Canadien errant, 1842, La Bonne Chanson

© Micheline Walker
28 March 2018
[14 January 2012]
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Translation by Leonard Cohen

Un Canadien errant (A wandering Canadian, )
Banni de ses foyers, (banned from his hearths, )
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Parcourait en pleurant (travelled while crying)
Des pays étrangers. (in foreign lands.)
Un jour, triste et pensif, (One day, sad and pensive, )
Assis au bord des flots, (sitting by the flowing waters, )
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
Au courant fugitif (to the fleeing current)
Il adressa ces mots: (he addressed these words:)
“Si tu vois mon pays, (If you see my country, )
Mon pays malheureux, (my unhappy country, )
Va dire à mes amis (go tell my friends)
Que je me souviens d’eux. (that I remember them.)
Va dire…
Leonard Cohen translates Un Canadian errant
 

The Voyageur & his Canoe

26 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canadian History, Folksongs, Métis, Voyageurs

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“Voyageurs at Dawn” by Frances Anne Hopkins, (1871) (1838–1919)

Grace Lee Nute, a pioneer

Several books have been written about the voyageurs, but Grace Lee Nute is our pioneer. She published her The Voyageur in 1931 (D. Appleton and Company). That book is still one’s best reference.

The Voyageur‘s clothes

At the beginning of her second chapter, Nute quotes missionnary Sherman Hall:

[m]y man dresses himself in the habit of a voyageur, that is, a short shirt, a red woolen cap, a pair of deer skin leggins which reach from the ancles a little above the knees and are held up by a string secured to a belt about the waiste, the aziōn [breech cloth] of the Indians, and a pair of deer skin moccasins without stocking on the feet. The thigh are left bare.  This is the dress of voyageurs in summer and winter.[i]

As Grace Lee Nute writes, there are missing items: “a blue capote, the inevitable pipe, a gaudy sash.” The gaudy sash is “une ceinture fléchée,” a wool belt with an arrow (une flêche) design, made by French Canadians. It resembles the Irish woven belt but is wider and features the arrows.

Nute adds that the voyageur also wore a “gay beeded bag or pouch hung from the sash,” quite similar to the Scottish Highlander’s hair horse sporran. The voyageur stood out in a crowd.

Dr Bigsby, whom we will meet in my next voyageur post,

was disappointed and not a little surprised at the appearance of the voyageurs. On Sundays, as they stand round the door of the village churches, they are proud dress fellows in their parti-coloured sashes and ostrich-feathers; but here they were a motley set to the eye: but the truth was that all of them were picked men, with extra wages as serving in a light canoe [ii]

“Quetico Superior Route, passing a Waterfall“ by Frances Ann Hopkins (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

A Hierarchy among Voyageurs

There was a hierarchy among voyageurs. We had:

  • hivernants (winterers): they stayed during the winter, trading and manning the “fort;”
  • hommes du Nord (northern men): outstanding voyageurs who travelled further inland and opened up Forts from Athabasca to Fort Vancouver, established by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821. Sometimes these voyageurs accompanied explorers such as Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye (17 November  1685 – 5 December 1749) and his four sons and Simon Fraser (20 May 1776 – 18 August 1862), an employee of the North West Company until its merger with the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821.
  • mangeurs de lard (pork-eaters), who went back and forth between Montreal and trading posts such as Grand-Portage.

The Canoes

One voyageur song is entitled “Épouser le voyage,” or to marry the voyage. The voyageur saw his work as a profession. As for the canoe, it was his home. Voyageurs travelled in their canoe and the canoe was the voyageur’s roof for the night. He slept underneath his upside-down canoe.

Origins of the Canoe

A voyageur learned how to make a canoe from what he could find in the wood. The birchbark canoe was of course borrowed from the Amerindians, but it was pointed out to me that there is a resemblance between the Longships used by Vikings and the York boat. However, the York boat was a boat, not a canoe. Yet the canoe resembled the Longships, except that it was relatively small. Europeans have long fished off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a pre-history to history (recorded history) just as there is an oral tradition preceding the written tradition.

In Newfoundland, there is a town named Port aux Basques, which would indicate that Basques fishermen probably fished nearby or used the channel located close to Port aux Basques. The Trans-Canada highway ends, or begins, at Port aux Basques.

Voyageurs used birchbark canoes:

Making a Birch Bark Canoe (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

“In building a canoe, bark is stripped from the birch, placed inside a staked frame, sewn and attached. Ribs are fixed in position and seams sealed with spruce gum (artwork by Lewis Parker).” [iii]

—ooo—

There were several types of canoes used by voyageurs, but the first two were the most important.

  • “The famous canot du maître or canot de Montréal, on which the fur trade depended, was up to 12 m long and carried 6 to 12 crew and a load of 2300 kg over the route from Montréal to Lake Superior.” [iv]
  • “The smaller canot du nord  or North canoe carried a crew of 5 or 6 and a cargo of 1360 kg over the smaller lakes, rivers and streams of the Northwest.” [v]
  • The canot bâtard or bastard canoe was a mid-size canoe.

However, voyageurs also used Amerindian canoes.

  • “The birchbark canoe of the Algonkian peoples was ideal for travel by rivers and lakes separated by narrow watersheds or portages (artwork by Lewis Parker).” [vi]
  • “The Kootenay-Salish canoe was built for the rapid rivers of southern BC, with both ends extending out under the water (artwork by Lewis Parker).” [vii]

The Algonkian Canoe, Lewis Parker (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

The York Boat was named after the Hudson’s Bay Co’s York Factory. “It was one of 3 types of inland boats (the others being scows and sturgeon-heads) used by the HBC, and the most suitable for lake travel.” [viii]

 

York Boats on Lake Winnipeg by W. J. Phillips (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia [courtesy Glenbow/4615])

Love to everyone ♥

_________________________
[i] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageurs (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987 [1931]), p. 13.

[ii] Op. cit., p. 15.

[iii] “Birchbark Canoes,” The Canadian Encyclopedia. <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/birchbark-canoe/>

[iv] loc. cit.

[v] loc. cit.

[vii] loc. cit.

[viii] “York Boat,” The Canadian Encyclopedia <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/york-boat/>

—ooo—

The Tonquin, 1811

The Tonquin, 1811

© Micheline Walker
14 January 2012
WordPress

The Voyageurs & their Employers

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canada, First Nations, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

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hbc-upper_savage_islands-hudson_strait2

Hudson’s Bay Company Ships
Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait, NWT. Watercolour by Robert Hood (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-40364) (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

The Hudson’s Bay Company ships Prince of Wales and Eddystone bartering with the Inuit off the Upper Savage Islands, Hudson Strait by Robert Hood (1819) (Hudson Strait, Wikipedia)

The French Régime

During the French régime, the voyageurs or canoemen who travelled to the heart of the continent to collect beaver pelts were hired by a “bourgeois” who used the selection criteria I listed in my last post:

  • short legs,
  • a powerful upper body, and
  • a good singing voice.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

Matters changed when Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636–1710) and his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1696), discovered the sea we now know as the Hudson’s Bay. They collected enough beaver pelts to fill a hundred canoes. Having done so, they travelled to Canada which, at that point in history, was the western part of Nouvelle-France. The eastern part was l’Acadie, comprising Maine, part of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Radisson and Groseilliers thought that officials in Canada would be interested in their discovery: one could harvest the coveted pelts travelling by boat, large boats. Officials confiscated the fur Radisson and Des Groseilliers had brought back. It was proof of their discovery. They were treated like coureurs des bois, mere adventurers, not to say criminals.

Rupert of the Rhine

Prince Rupert of the Rhine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Radisson being very shrewd, he and Des Groseilliers went to Boston to seek the help  they required to travel to England. The Bostonians agreed to take them to England where a member of the royal family, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682), took an interest in the findings of the two explorers. He financed a trip to the Hudson’s Bay. The first ships to venture to what would be Rupert’s Land were the Eaglet and the Nonsuch that left England on June 3, 1668. The Company was chartered on 2 May 1670. That is how the Hudson’s Bay Company was established.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)

is the oldest incorporated joint-stock merchandising company in the English-speaking world.[I]

Rupert's Land showing York Factory

Rupert’s Land showing York Factory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The British Régime

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1763 by France, Britain and Spain, France relinquished its claim on its two provinces of New France. The Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War, an international conflict.

The North West Company

After New France became a British Colony, a second Fur Company was founded, the North West Company, and it established its headquarters in Montreal. The most prominent figures in the newly-founded company were Benjamin Frobisher, his brother Joseph, and Simon McTavish.

The Fight at Seven Oaks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

The North West Company competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1779 to 1821, when a merger was negotiated. The conflict between the two companies reached an apex on 19 June 1816 when Robert Semple, Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land challenged a party of Métis at Seven Oaks. The Métis were allies of the North West Company. Semple and 20 of his men were killed.

The Merger

This event served as a catalyst in the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. After the merger, the man in charge, was the immensely capable and pleasant Sir George Simpson (1787 – September 7,  1860), a Scots-Quebecer. Sir George Simpson was Governor-in-Chief of Rupert’s Land and administrator over the Northwest Territories and in British North America (now Canada) from 1821 to 1860. He was knighted by Queen Victoria.

To sum up, let us simply say that we had voyageurs working for

  • a “bourgeois,”
  • The Hudson’s Bay Company (1670 – ),
  • The North West Company, revived in 1990, but not a fur-trading company,
  • a merger (1821-1860; end of the fur trade).

However, by 1821, only one company remained: the Hudson’s Bay Company.

York boats were used by the Hudson’s Bay Company to transport furs in the Northwest. The sails could be used in open water. (Canadian Encyclopedia)

______________________________

[i] written by ARTHUR J. RAY, reviewed by SASHA YUSUFALI , accessed on January 12, 2012.  <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/hudsons-bay-company>

[ii] written by CORNELIUS J. JAENEN, accessed on January 12, 2012.  <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/treaty-of-paris-1763>

—ooo—

Arne Dørumsgaard, arr.
Frederica von Stade (1945- ) sings early French songs (3), (Edinburgh, 1976)
 
 
 

© Micheline Walker
13 January 2012
WordPress

The Voyageurs, continued

23 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, French songs, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

≈ 2 Comments

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Signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The leading British delegate Baron Gambier is shaking hands with the American leader John Quincy Adams. The British Undersecretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Goulburn, is carrying a red folder. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Past Articles

My post entitled Louis Riel, hero or rebel (20 March 2018) was very long, too long. I  will mention the settlement of the Red River Colony by the Earl of Selkirk, but the details will constitute a separate post.

I had researched material concerning the voyageurs in a series of six posts published in 2012. I had also written posts mentioning the Treaty of Ghent, In 1814, a border between the future Canada and the United States was drawn. The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812. As for the Pemmican War, they opposed voyageurs from the Hudson’s Bay Company (established in 1670) and voyageurs North West Company, established in 1789, with headquarters in Montreal. Two voyageurs posts feature Gabriel Franchère and the men he took from New York to Fort Astoria, located in present-day Oregon. Franchère was in the employ of John Jacob Astor‘s Pacific Fur Company and the earlier American Fur Company, incorporated in 1808. John Jacob was allowed to hire Canadiens voyageurs despite the Embargo Act of 1807.  Moreover, following the Treaty of Ghent, fur trading posts that had been British became American fur trading posts. Gabriel Franchère, a clerk and trusted employee of John Jacob Astor’s lived in Minnesota.

Future Articles

  • the “School Questions”
  • the Exodus

However, earlier posts do not refer to certain events that followed Louis Riel’s death. For instance, the population of Canada West had been Catholic and Anglican. Matters changed as Canada moved westward. The purchase of Rupert’s Land gave Canada the territory it needed and the Orange Order opposed the arrival of French Canadians in Ontario. At this point, we have the “School Questions:” the Ontario Schools Questions; the Manitoba Schools Question, and the New Brunswick Schools Question. I wonder if, and to what extent, French-Canadian habitants tried to move to Ontario and provinces west of Ontario.

Nearly a million French-speaking Canadians moved to the United States, including my paternal grandfather and other relatives, when the thirty acres granted habitants by La Compagnie des Cent-Associés (see The Canadian Encyclopedia) could no longer be divided and French-speaking Canadians had yet to acquire skills one needed in the business world.

Nearly a million French Canadians moved to the United States. That episode of Canada’s history is called the exodus. Protestants in New France had also fled to the Thirteen Colonies after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. New France was a province of France.

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

The Minnesota Heritage Song Book (lyrics and translation)

526776478

Reign of Louis XIV of France. French Huguenots arriving in Dover (England) after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1685. Coloured engraving.
January 01, 1900 (Photo credit: Getty Images)

506px-Map_of_territorial_growth_1775.svg

Thirteen Colonies (dark pink). Louisiana is situated on the left side. It belonged to Spain in 1775, but was mostly a French colony. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

M’en revenant de la jolie Rochelle


and

La Bonne Chanson (l’abbé Gadbois)

Lake_Superior_(Ontario;_1864_)_(16359604754)
Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869 (Photo credit Wikipedia)  

© Micheline Walker
22 March 2018
WordPress

 

 

The Voyageurs: hommes engagés

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Art, Canadian History, Métis, Voyageurs

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Shooting the Rapid, 1879, Frances Ann Hopkins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shooting the Rapids by Frances Ann Hopkins, 1879 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Voyageurs

The voyageurs were the French-speaking Canadian boatmen or canoemen, who travelled in birch-bark canoes from Ottawa or Lachine, to fur-trading posts in what is now Manitoba and Minnesota, Grand-Portage being the main trading post.

  • First, they had to short-legged. Being short-legged was important because they had to transport as much fur as possible relatively small canoes and much of the fur was stored under each canoeman’s seat in the canoe. There was very little room for their legs.
  • Second, a strong upper body was an essential characteristic. They sometimes had to go from one waterway to another waterway and when they did, they carried fur (usually beaver pelts) and personal supplies on their back, bundles called bales, they carried on their backs, weighed more than 40 kilos (about 90 pounds), perhaps a conservative figure. And they also had to carry their canoe.  These parts of their trips were called a portage (from the French porter: to carry).
  • Third, they had to be good singers.

The Singing Voyageurs

Travellers to North-America, fur traders, employees and governors of fur-trading companies, such as the Hudson’s Bay Company, historians, and others often reported that the Canadien voyageur, sang as he paddled canoes filled with precious pelts.

Les Trois Cavaliers fort bien montés (The Three Well-Mounted Horsemen), a folksong, inspired Irish poet Thomas Moore to give it new words in 1804. It became the famous Canadian Boat Song.

In Kitchi-Gami [i], J. G. Kohl writes that “They [the voyageurs] were chosen men! The best singers in the world:”

C’était des hommes choisis ! Les plus beaux chanteurs du monde!

Le Portage

Portages were so difficult that the men often chose to “shoot the rapids.” At such times, I doubt that they sang. “Shooting the rapids” was dangerous and many men died.  Alongside the rivers the voyageurs used to go from Lachine (Montreal), or Ottawa, the usual points of departure, to what is now Manitoba and Minnesota, there are little white crosses. The voyageurs left small white crosses where boatmen had die.

The Contract: voyageurs and coureurs de/des bois

We have to distinguish between the voyageurs who had a licence to work in the fur trade and those who roamed the forests without the proper permit, called coureurs de/des bois. As for the voyageur, he was a hired man: an engagé. But the coureurs des bois were adventurers. They roamed the woods without a permit and if they got caught fur-trading, they faced sanctions and the beaver pelts they had not sold were confiscated.

These men usually signed a three-year contract which meant that they often left behind, a wife and children to whom the earnings of the voyageur were usually sent.  However, many men lived with Amerindian women or married Amerindian women. Their children were Métis.

However, some voyageur wanted to marry a French-Canadian woman and simply waited. Canada’s Louis Riel‘s grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière, went to Quebec to marry Marie-Anne Gaboury, the first white woman to settle in Western Canada. Their daughter Julie married a Métis named Louis Riel and they had a son they named Louis Riel. Several Métis remained in Manitoba, but the Battle of Batoche took place in Saskatchewewan. Many retired in Minnesota, USA. Those who did had usually been employed by the American Fur Trade company, founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808.

—ooo—

I will continue to tell the story of the voyageurs, but let this be the background. We have actually gone a long way.  For the time being, I will continue to reflect on the fact that these men sang despite the dangers they faced and their isolation from their home.

Voyageurs

© Micheline Walker
12 January 2012
WordPress
 
_________________________

[i] G. Kohl, Kitchi-Gami. Wanderings Round Lake Superior (London: Chapman and Hall, 1860).  Available in paperback, with an introduction by Robert E. Bieder, under the title Life Among the Lake Superior Ojibway (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1985 [1860]).

The Beaver

The Beaver

Gabriel Franchère, a Hero to Americans

20 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Diaries, Fur Trade, Voyageurs

≈ 4 Comments

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Fort_George

Fort George (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

On Gabriel Franchère

In 1846, Gabriel Franchère (1786 – 1863), a humble and probably “submissive” Canadien from Montreal was praised by American Senator Thomas H. Benton and spoken of as a “gentleman of Montreal,” with whom Senator Benton had “the pleasure to be personally acquainted.”

“In 1846, when the boundary question (that of the Oregon Territory in particular) was at its height, the Hon. THOMAS H. BENTON delivered in the United States Senate a decisive speech, of which the following is an extract:

‘Now for the proof∗ of all I have said. I happen to have in my possession the book of all others, which gives the fullest and most authentic details on all the points I have mentioned—a book written at a time, and under circumstances, when the author, himself a British subject and familiar on the Columbia) had no more idea that the British would lay claim to that river, than Mr. Harmon, the American writer whom I quoted, ever thought of our claiming New Caledonia [British Columbia]. It is the work of Mr. FRANCHERE, a gentleman of Montreal, with whom I have the pleasure to be personally acquainted, and one of those employed by Mr. ASTOR in founding his colony. He was at the founding of ASTORIA, at its sale to the Northwest Company, saw the place seized as a British conquest, and continued there after its seizure. He wrote in French: his work has not been done into English, though it well deserves it; and I read from the French text. He gives a brief and true account of the discovery of the Columbia.’” [EBook #15911][1]

∗ I have underlined certain portions of my quotations. The authors I am quoting did not. They, however, used capital letters.

Moreover, J. V. Huntington, the translator and editor of Franchère’s account of his sea voyage from New York to the short-lived Fort Astoria, preferred Franchère’s Relation, published in French in 1820, to Washington Irving’s Astoria, based on Franchère’s French-language Relation. Astoria was published in 1836 and it is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #1371]. J. V. Huntington writes that:

“[w]ithout disparagement to Mr. IRVING’S literary, fame, I may venture to say that I found in his work inaccuracies, misstatements (unintentional of course), and a want of chronological order, which struck forcibly one so familiar with the events themselves. I thought I could show—or rather that my simple narration, of itself, plainly discovered—that some of the young men embarked in that expedition (which founded our Pacific empire), did not merit the ridicule and contempt which Captain THORN attempted to throw upon them, and which perhaps, through the genius of Mr. IRVING, might otherwise remain as a lasting stigma on their characters.”[EBook #15911][2]

Franchère’s Claim to Fame: his Book

Had Franchère not written an accurate narrative of the Tonquin‘s journey to the northwest coast of the current United States, and of events related to this sea expedition, such as the incident at the Falkland Islands and the demise of the Tonquin, I doubt that future generations would remember Gabriel Franchère. He was a simple clerk but a witness and his book, the proof. He told Astoria.[3]

In many footnotes, the editor of a reprint of Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849) refers his readers to Gabriel Franchère’s 1820 Relation.

Moreover, although Franchère seems to have emerged from the annals of history recently, he is a familiar figure to readers of Grace Lee Nute’s The Voyageur, published in 1931.

The Many Stories

War of 1812
American Expansionism
Ethnography
Fur trade
Etc.

Given its many links: the War of 1812, American Expansionism, ethnography, Gabriel Franchère’s Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13 et 14 is a book that is difficult to overlook. It is moreover a fine narrative and could be considered both a récit de voyage (a traveler’s tale) and, to a certain extent, a coming-of-age story.[4] Gabriel Franchère was not in his teens, but he was young, 24, and he had never left home or met so evil a man as Captain Jonathan Thorn.

Franchère’s récit is linked to many events, but let us situate his narrative in its immediate context: the fur trade and, specifically, John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. Franchère (Internet Archives) wrote about:

  1. the Tonquin sailing from New York to the Columbia River (Chapters I to VI);
  2. the incident at the Falkland Islands (pp. 47-49);
  3. the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) (beginning p. 54);
  4. the Sandwich Islanders taken aboard (p. 84);
  5. the deadly Columbia Bar (beginning p. 88)
  6. the naming of Mount St. Helens (p. 109);
  7. the arrival of David Thomson (p. 120);
  8. rumours of the demise of the Tonquin (p. 124);
  9. the arrival of the overland Astorians (p. 144);
  10. the account of Captain Black claiming Fort Astoria for Britain (beginning p. 166); (12 December 1813)
  11. the departure from Fort George (p. 263); (4 April 1814)
  12. an account of the Astorians’ trip north.
Gabriel Franchère

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Main Story

Yet the main story could be the story of Gabriel Franchère himself who, in the eyes of Senator Thomas H. Benton, was a “gentleman of Montreal” and a hero to Americans.

On 12 December 1813, the Canadien clerk (un commis) did see Captain Black of the Racoon (or Raccoon) claim Fort Astoria for Britain and rename it Fort George, in honour of George III, the reigning British monarch. Yet, Gabriel Franchère is an unlikely hero to Americans and, truth be told, an unlikely hero. He was a clerk, not a partner and, as a Canadien, he was a British subject. However, he was a witness to history and told the tale.

In a post about voyageurs, I quoted Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob Astor’s successor. In his opinion, Congress “had to make an exception in the case of voyageurs when passing a law excluding all foreigners from the American fur trade,” which is how, i.e. almost accidentally, Gabriel Franchère became an American. According to Ramsay Crooks:

“tis only in the Canadian we find that temper of mind, to render him patient docile and preserving. in [sic] short they are a people harmless in themselves whose habits of submission fit them peculiarly for our business and if guided as it is my wish they should be, will never give just cause of alarm to the Government of the Union[.][5]

Be that as it may, J. V. Huntington, Gabriel Franchère’s translator and editor, tried “[t]o preserve in the translation the Defoe-like [Robinson Crusoe] simplicity of the original narrative of the young French Canadian.”

Gabriel Franchère’s Relation was published in his life time, in 1820, but it was not republished in Quebec until 2002. Gabriel Franchère may have been an unlikely American, but he retired in Minnesota, USA, because of the Treaty of 1818, or accidentally (again).

It so happens that under the terms of the Treaty of 1818, the 49th parallel would be the boundary between Canada and the United States, which meant that territory that was American became Canadian, and territory that was Canadian ended up “south of the border.” (See Treaty of Ghent and Treaty of 1818, Wikipedia.)

The map below can be enlarged by clicking on the image.

UnitedStatesExpansion

Treaty of 1818: the Boundary between Canada and the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grace Lee Nute writes that:

“[t]he Astorians have been famous in American history for over a century. Ramsay Crooks, W. P. Hunt, Robert McLellan, Gabriel Franchere, and the two Stuarts, Robert and David—who does not know of their heroic adventures in crossing the great West and navigating around the Horn to found near the mouth of the Columbia an American trading post named in honor of the master spirit of the enterprise, John Jacob Astor?”[6]

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Ressources

  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814; or, the First American Settlement on the Pacific, Project Gutenberg [EBook #15911] EN
  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814; or, the First American  Settlement on the Pacific (Internet Archives) EN
  • Gabriel Franchère, Relation d’un voyage à la côte du Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13 et 14 (Montréal : C. B. Pasteur, 1820) (Internet Archives) FR
  • Washington Irving’s Astoria, Project Gutenberg [EBook #1371] EN
  • Ross’s Adventures of the First Setters on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849) (Internet Archives) EN

With my kindest regards. ♥
____________________

[1] Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, translator and editor, Preface to the second edition of a Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1810, 1811, 1813 and 1814, or the First American Settlement on the Pacific (New York, 1854).

[2] Ibid.

[3] See They had Witnesses To Prove It (tkmorin.com)

[4] This may also be the case with Alexander Ross‘ narrative. Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London, 1849). (Reprint, Carlisle, Massachusetts: Applewood Books).

[5] See John Jacob Astor & the Voyager as Settler and Explorer (michelinewalker.com)

[6] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (St. Paul: Reprint Edition Minnesota Historical Society, 1955), p. 173. 

Gabriel Franchère (en français)

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/radio/profondeur/RemarquablesOublies/franchere.htm

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/de_remarquables_oublies/serie/document.asp?idDoc=149919

Eyewitness to Astoria by Rex Ziak

David Thomson

David Thompson

© Micheline Walker
20 June 2015
WordPress

Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part Two)

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Aboriginals, Explorers, Voyageurs

≈ 4 Comments

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The Tonquin Ship

(Photo credit: www.gotofino.com)

The above is a depiction, by Mark Myers, of the Tonquin, a 290-ton bark, une barque, used by John Jacob Astor‘s ill-fated Pacific Fur Company. John Jacob Astor bought the Tonquin on 23 August 1810 from Fanning and Coles. (See The Tonquin, Wikipedia).

Although Alexander Ross described the sinking of the Tonquin, he was not aboard the ship when it was attacked by Nootka Amerindians at Clayoquot Sound, in June 1811. It seems an Astorian left aboard the ship blew it up. As the story was conveyed to Alexander Ross, “one hundred and seventy-five Amerindians perished[.]” (Ross reprint, p. 170.) Alexander Ross writes that Captain Thorn’s temper “was cruel and over-bearing,—and his fate verifies the sacred decrees, that ‘he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy.’” (Ross reprint, p. 171.) According to Ross’ report, not only had Captain Thorn (8 January 1779 – 15 June 1811) insulted the Amerindians, but he had also detained two chiefs.

On the 12th Day of December

Young Alexander Ross had remained at Fort Astoria when the Tonquin set sail to the north, its crew and passengers hoping to collect precious pelts. However, on 12 December 1813, he witnessed Fort Astoria’s “death-warrant:”

“On the 12th Day of December [1813], the death-warrant of short-lived Astoria was signed.” (Ross reprint, p. 250.)

On that day, Captain Black, who arrived on the Racoon, took possession of Fort Astoria and renamed it Fort George, in honour of his “Britannic Majesty” George III. However, men employed by the Montreal-based North West Company had preceded Captain Black by more than a year, nearly two. The soon-to-be Fort George had already become the property of the North West Company. Captain Black acted graciously, but there was no reward for him and his men at Fort George.

Let us now trace our way back to the beginning of Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative, a year before the Tonquin’s demise on the west coast of Vancouver island, at Clayoquot Sound, but also, a year before, to her losses at the entrance to the Columbia River.

Franchère’s Story Begins …

The Pacific Fur Company (est. 24 June 1810)
Gabriel Franchère
Voyageurs to New York

Gabriel Franchère (3 Nov. 1786 in Montreal – d. 12 April 1863 in St Paul, Minn.) was entrusted by John Jacob Astor to take voyageurs to the Columbia River and the Oregon Country. He is the author of a Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814; or, the First American Settlement on the Pacific. Born in Quebec, he was the son of Gabriel Franchère, merchant, and Félicité Morin (Miron, Marin). Franchère joined the Pacific Fur Company, founded on 24 June 1810, as a clerk.

Franchère travelled down Lake Champlain in a canoe. There must have been some portage, but, by and large, rivers were found all the way to Long Island. The canoe was in fact put on a wagon (une charette) and the voyageurs went down the Hudson River. (Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative, 24-25)

Gabriel Franchère

Franchère takes Astorians from New York to the Oregon Country
Narratives of the Voyage

As John Jacob Astor’s employee, Gabriel Franchère is remembered for his taking Canadiens voyageurs around Cape Horn and up to Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, today’s Astoria, Oregon (US).

But more importantly, Franchère kept notes on the Astor Expedition and, as mentioned above, he wrote a narrative of his epic journey, which was used by Washington Irving, the author of Astoria (1836), a book commissioned by John Jacob Astor. However, Franchère’s book has now been recognized as a very fine and accurate account of the Astor Expedition. It is a good book, reflecting uncommon understanding and sensitivity on the part of its author.

Aboard the Tonquin

Aboard the Tonquin when she left New York on 8 September, 1810, were partners Duncan McDougall, Robert Stuart and his uncle David Stuart, and Alexander MacKay, who took along his 13-year son, Alexander Ross (9 May 1783 – 23 Oct. 1856), not a partner (See Alexander MacKay, Wikipedia.) Alexander MacKay co-founded Fort Astoria. Also aboard were 12 clerks and 13 Canadian voyageurs, plus four tradesmen: Augustus Roussel, a blacksmith; Johann Koaster, a carpenter; Job Aitkem, a boat builder; and George Bell, a cooper. (See Tonquin, Wikipedia.)

The Falkland Islands

Stopover: fresh water
Captain Thorn’s callousness

I should include the ship’s crew and captain Jonathan Thorn (8 January 1779 – 15 June 1811) who was nearly shot to death by Robert Stuart when he set sail off the Falkland Islands, leaving behind Robert’s uncle, David Stuart, and 8 men (See Robert Stuart, Wikipedia.) Gabriel Franchère and other Astorians were nearly abandoned. In his Narrative, Gabriel Franchère writes that “nothing could excuse the act of cruelty and barbarity of which he was guilty.” (Franchère’s Narrative, pp. 48-49.)

Until it reached Fort Astoria, the story of the Tonquin is, by virtue of its subject-matter, an extraordinary story, but not a tragedy, except for Jonathan Thorn’s callous behaviour. The ship stopped at the uninhabited Falkland Islands because it needed small repairs and because its crew and passengers were nearly out of fresh water. However, had it not been for Robert Stuart, Jonathan Thorn would have caused the death of David Stuart and 8 men, one of whom was Franchère. In one description of Captain Thorn, Franchère states that:

“[h]is haughty manners, his rough and overbearing disposition, had lost him the affection of most of the crew and all the passengers.” (Franchère’s Narrative, pp. 48-49.)

Naukane, by Paul Kane

Naukane, by Paul Kane, 1847 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hawaiian Islands, or  Sandwich Islands

Hawaiian Islands (formerly, the Sandwich Islands)
Naukane
Kanakas

The Tonquin also stopped in the Hawaiian Islands, then called the “Sandwich Islands” and “Karakakooa.” It took aboard Naukane (ca. 1779 – 2 February 1850), the son of high chief Tamanawa. At Oahu, 20 men, called kanakas, were also taken aboard and placed under the care of Naukane (ca. 1779 – 2 February 1850). Other explorers had stopped at the Sandwich Islands. Captain James Cook was murdered on one of the Islands, in 1779.

Naukane’s name was changed to John or George Cox(e). Naukane sailed to England twice. In 1812, he travelled to Britain on the ship Isaac Todd. Later, in 1823, King Kamehameha II, of Hawaii, and Naukane were both sent to England to meet George IV, who ascended to the throne when George III grew mentally incapable of functioning as King of the United Kingdom.

After the demise of the Pacific Fur Company, in late 1813, Naukane returned to Hawaii. However, he would journey back to the Pacific Northwest and join the North West Company, as would Alexander Ross. He married a very young Aboriginal woman and lived at Kanaka, near Fort Vancouver. He died at Fort Vancouver. (See Naukane, Wikipedia.)

The Tonquin at the Columbia Bar,

The Tonquin at the Columbia Bar  (Photo credit: Internet Archives)

Franchere_fort_astoria_1813

Astoria, as it was in 1813 (Photo credit: Internet Archives)

The Tonquin’s Sorry Fate

The Columbia Bar
Men died

There are two endings to the story of the Tonquin. When the boat arrived at the entrance of the Columbia River, it faced a deadly obstacle: the Columbia bar, known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Three boats were dispatched on successive days to find an entrance to the Columbia River. This search claimed some eight lives, including the life of one the kanakas.

Astorians began building Fort Astoria, but the Tonquin sailed north to her death at Clayoquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. By leaving Fort Astoria, Captain Thorn had also imperiled the men he left behind. They could no longer escape, which meant that they were at the mercy of Amerindians and facing difficult circumstances. The characteristics that make Oregon a fine destination, its gigantic trees in particular, were a nightmare to men building a fort. How could such trees be felled?

You know the rest of the story. Insulted and otherwise provoked by Jonathan Thorn, the Nootka Amerindians retaliated.

Conclusion

As written above, Fort Astoria was renamed Fort George after the War of 1812, when Captain Black, aboard the Racoon, claimed Fort Astoria for George III. A few months later, on 4 April 1814, Gabriel Franchère and other Astorians (Internet Archives, p. 263), left Fort George.

“We quitted Fort George (or Astoria if you please) on Monday morning, the 4th of April, 1814, in ten canoes, five of which were bark and five of cedar wood, carrying each seven men and crew, and two passengers, in all ninety persons, and all well armed.” (Narrative, p. 263)

Gabriel Franchère returned to Montreal. As noted above, Alexander Ross joined the North West Company and then the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), when the North West Company was merged with the HBC, in 1821. Ross married an Okanagan Amerindian princess and eventually settled in the Earl of Selkirk‘s Red River Colony, present-day Winnipeg. His descendants are Métis.

The Astor Expedition was not a complete failure. The Oregon Trail was traced, giving settlers a road to follow as they travelled west of the former Louisiana. The Oregon Trail allowed them to circumvent impassable terrain: a terrifying mountain range.

As for Franchère’s Narrative, it is, as I wrote above, a fine book written by a fine man. It stands on its own merit. What Franchère wrote about Captain Jonathan Thorn corroborates Alexander Ross’ description.

As he concludes his narrative, Gabriel Franchère points out that Irving did not give a completely accurate account of Astoria.

Washington Irving was a writer of fiction. It is therefore unlikely that he conveyed the real truth about Astoria. The truth he conveyed would be “poetical.” It may in fact resemble the truth about the demise of the Tonquin. 

The truth about the Tonquin’s final moments is not the truth an eye-witness would tell, yet we know that Ross’ account reveals a more profound truth, which is that Captain Thorn’s death,

“verifies the sacred decrees, that ‘he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy.’” (Ross reprint, p. 171)

With kindest regards. ♥

RELATED ARTICLE:

Sources and Resources

  • Washington Irving, Astoria, Gutenberg [EBook #1371]
  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast, Gutenberg [EBook #15911] EN
  • Gabriel Franchère and J. V. Huntington, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811,1812,1813, and 1814; or, the First American Settlement on the Pacific, Internet Archives EN
  • Gabriel Franchère, Relation d’un voyage à la côte Nord-Ouest de l’Amérique septentrionale dans les années 1810, 11, 12, 13 et 14 (Montréal : C.B. Pasteur, 1820) (Internet Archives) FR
  • Ross, Alexander: Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (Internet Archives) EN
  • Alexander Ross, Ross’s Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813 (London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1849 [Reprint Carlisle Massachusetts: Applewood Books]). 

The Tonquin Ship

The Tonquin Ship

© Micheline Walker
10 June 2015
WordPress

Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part One)

06 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Aboriginals, Sharing, Travel Literature, Voyageurs

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Paul Kane, 1846

Buffalo Bulls Fighting by Paul Kane

Paul Kane, 1846, watercolour on paper. Kane visited the West when the bison were still numerous (courtesy Stark Foundation, Orange, Texas)

(Photo and caption credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Progress Report

We are now at the mouth of the Columbia River, aboard the Tonquin, when the War of 1812 broke out, ending John Jacob Astor‘s dream of a monopoly on the fur trade in North America.  John Jacob Astor (17 July 1763 – 29 March 1848), had just founded the Pacific Fur Company (PFC). The demise of the Tonquin, a bark, at the Clayoquot Sound, was a factor in the collapse of the Pacific Fur Company. Chief Wickaninnish and members of his tribe, murdered most of the Tonquin’s crew.

At Fort Astoria, in the Oregon country, nearly everyone was British. Fort Astoria quickly became Fort George. The Montreal-based North West Company, rivals to the Hudson’s Bay Company, bought the Pacific Fur Company‘s assets.

Gabriel Franchère

Gabriel Franchère (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

I am reading online publications of Gabriel Franchère‘s narrative of the journey that took him from New York to short-lived Fort Astoria, as well as my own copies of such works as Alexander Ross’s account of his adventures in the Oregon country.

Gabriel Franchère, a clerk, was one of John Jacob Astor’s most trusted employees who, as it turns out, would become an author. Franchère wrote a detailed Relation, a narrative, of the trip that took him and all men aboard the Tonquin, from partners in the Company to the lowliest employees, from New York to Fort Astoria, around Cape Horn.

In 1836, John Jacob would commission famed author Washington Irving (3 April 1783 – 28 November 1859; Rip van Winkle) to write Astoria. Consequently, Franchère’s narrative was requisitioned. Gabriel Franchère was a mere clerk.

In Franchère’s Narrative, translated and edited by J. V. Huntington, Aboriginals are often referred to as “barbarians” and “savages,” but Franchère observed that it was best to treat them as equals and thereby avoid hostility. I don’t know what led Chief Wickaninnish to murder most of the crew of the Tonquin.

A Honeymoon 

Coincidentally, my husband and I spent our honeymoon at Wickaninnish Inn, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in the area where the Tonquin was destroyed. The food was extraordinary and we were in the company of celebrities who flew to the Inn regularly to “get away from it all.” At the time, there was no road to Wickaninnish Inn. We had Long Beach all to ourselves. Emily Carr had lived in that area. So we visited and worshipped.

Haida Totems by Emily Carr

Haida Totems by Emily Carr (Photo Credit: Google Images)

When we returned to Vancouver, I took a course on textile and was taught the Haida people‘s techniques for spinning, dyeing, and weaving wool. I still have wool I spun decades ago, but I gave my artwork. I believe it was destroyed, which could be what it deserved. 

The years I spent on the west coast were my happiest.

Sources and Resources

With kindest regards ♥
_________________________

I am  inserting a brief video on Emily Carr (The Canadian Encyclopedia). Simply click on the link below and use the arrows to see the video:

Emily Carr (click)

I am also inserting, once again, Canada’s National Film Board‘s documentary on Paul Kane. It is a 1972 production by Gerard Budner (1972: 14 min 28 s.). It cannot be embedded, but one is a mere click away, below:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/paul_kane_goes_west (click)

untitled

Boat Encampment, Sketch made by Paul Kane on the Columbia River, BC, c. 1846, watercolour. (Courtesy Stark Foundation, Orange, Texas). (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

© Micheline Walker
6 June 2015
WordPress