Tag Archives: voyageurs

The Voyageur & his Canoe

26 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Canadian History, Folksongs, Métis, Voyageurs

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

“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 Royal Proclamation of 1763 (Indigenous Foundations)

06 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canada

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , ,

The_Trapper's_Bride

The Trapper’s Bride by Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874), 1850 (Photo credit: Joslyn Art Museum)

 Put simply, Canada’s Aboriginal peoples were here when Europeans came, and were never conquered.

Canadian Aboriginal Art at the Senate

The history of Canadian Aboriginals in Canada differs from the history of American Aboriginals. The French did exploit Amerindians by providing them with alcohol and trinkets in return for precious pelts. However, François de Laval (1623 – 1708), the bishop of Quebec, threatened to excommunicate the “sinners.”

As for Amerindians, they tortured to death several missionaries. The best-known is Jean de Brébeuf. Mohawks, allies of the British, captured and tortured Europeans. One of their victims was Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636 – 1710), who was saved by his Amerindian family and eventually escaped. He and his brother-in-law, Médard des Groseillers (1618 – 1696), discovered the sea to the north, the Hudson Bay. Fur traders could henceforth travel by boat to collect beaver pelts.

The French Régime

the settlers’ dependence on Amerindians
anedda
birch-bark canoes
voyageurs
Métis
pemmican

In 1535, the year after he claimed Canada for France, Jacques Cartier failed to return to France before the onset of winter. Several members of his crew started to die of scurvy. Amerindians supplied Cartier with infusions of thuja occidentalis, white cedar, and saved his men. Jacques Cartier was at Stadacona, an Iroquoian (Mohawk) village near the current Quebec City. This was Cartier’s second trip to what would become New France in the first decade of the 17th century. He was returning his sons, Domayaga and Taignoagny, to Chief Donnacona.

The French also owe Amerindians their birch-bark canoes. These were light and could be built in very little time with material nature provided. How would Canadiens have become voyageurs and guides to explorers without the birch-bark canoes? The voyageurs learned Amerindian languages—there were and are several—and Amerindians prepared their food, pemmican.

More importantly, given that France had sent very few women to New France until 1663, when the King’s Daughters, les filles du roy, started arriving, a significant number of French settlers married Amerindian women.

So did Voyageurs. Some signed a three-year contract and stayed at the trading posts during the winter. They often married an Amerindian woman. They founded a people: the Métis, recognized aboriginals who speak Michif, a mixed language. Recognized aboriginals comprise the First Nations, the Inuit and the Métis.

The best-known Métis is the ill-fated Louis Riel, the “Father of Manitoba” and the grandson of Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière and Marie-Anne Gaboury “the first woman of European descent to travel to and settle in what is now Western Canada.” (See Marie-Anne Gaboury, Wikipedia)

Pierre Le Royer, coureur des bois, 1889
Louis Riel, the “Father of Manitoba”
Arrival of Radisson in an Indian Camp, Charles William Jefferys, 1660
Conference between the French and First Nations leaders. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Proclamation of 1763: the Indian Magna Carta

When New France became a British colony, Amerindians feared for their survival. Settlers wanted their land. England’s answer was the Proclamation of 1763. The Proclamation of 1763 protected the French and it also protected aboriginals.

This story resembles that of the Quebec Act of 1774 which put England’s new French colony on an equal footing with British settlers by allowing them to keep their language, their faith, their seigneuries and their Code civil.

Where aboriginals are concerned, the Proclamation of 1763 became their Magna Carta. It in fact turned 250 years old in 2013 and is enshrined in the Canada Act of 1982.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/royal-proclamation-of-1763-canada-s-indian-magna-carta-turns-250-1.1927667

If one is looking for the underpinnings of the Constitution of 1867 and Patriated Constitution of 1982, the Canada Act, the Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774 are fundamental texts.

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development

Canada has a Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and a Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Jean Chrétien, a former Prime Minister of Canada, was Minister of Indian Affairs for six years.

His [Jean Chrétien’s] one bold attempt to change how Ottawa traditionally dealt with native Canadians – the 1969 White Paper on “Indian Policy” – was so spectacularly repudiated by Indian leaders as a denial of their special status in Canada that it took him years to overcome their suspicions about his underlying motives.

Conclusion

We are not ready for a conclusion. This story is a very long one and it has a few sad chapters. However, we have seen that the bonds that developed between Amerindians and the French were often dictated by need, but they were true bonds. For instance, the French needed not only canoes, but snowshoes and the appropriate clothes. They used what the Amerindians used.

Moreover, after New France was ceded to Britain, both the inhabitants of New France and Amerindians were protected by Britain. The British may have had a motive: the Thirteen Colonies wanted their independence. There would be a war. Therefore, it was best not to alienate those who might help or to make sure they remained neutral. However, what seemed to be temporary became permanent. The rights given Amerindians became permanent rights. Such is also the case with the Quebec Act of 1774. There are separatists and extremists, but there has also been a long and mostly compatible partnership.

My kindest regards to all of you. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

In these Fairylike Boats …
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageur Mythified
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés (hired men)←

Sources and Resources

Jacques Cartier, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, Mohawks, Proclamation of 1673, Louis Riel, Canadian Encyclopedia
indigenous.foundations.arts.ubc.ca (University of British Columbia) 
How did the Seven Years War Affect Native Americans?
The war that made Canada (National Post)
http://www.cbc.ca/revisionquest/
Canadian Aboriginal law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_law
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1991

—ooo—

According to the Canada Act of 1982

35 (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.

(2) In this Act, “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the Indian, Inuit, and Metis peoples of Canada.

(3) For greater certainty, in subsection (1) “treaty rights” includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.

(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the aboriginal and treaty rights referred to in subsection (1) are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.

35.1 The government of Canada and the provincial governments are committed to the principal that, before any amendment is made to Class 24 of section 91 of the “Constitution Act, 1867”, to section 25 of this Act or to this Part,

(a) a constitutional conference that includes in its agenda an item relating to the proposed amendment, composed of the Prime Minister of Canada and the first ministers of the provinces, will be convened by the Prime Minister of Canada; and

(b) the Prime Minister of Canada will invite representatives of the aboriginal peoples of Canada to participate in the discussions on that item.

Royal Proclamation of 1763

And whereas it is just and reasonable, and essential to our Interest, and the Security of our Colonies, that the several Nations or Tribes of Indians with whom We are connected, and who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them, or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds — We do therefore, with the Advice of our Privy Council, declare it to be our Royal Will and Pleasure, that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our Colonies of Quebec, East Florida. or West Florida, do presume, upon any Pretence whatever, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass any Patents for Lands beyond the Bounds of their respective Governments. as described in their Commissions: as also that no Governor or Commander in Chief in any of our other Colonies or Plantations in America do presume for the present, and until our further Pleasure be known, to grant Warrants of Survey, or pass Patents for any Lands beyond the Heads or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the West and North West, or upon any Lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them.

And We do further declare it to be Our Royal Will and Pleasure, for the present as aforesaid, to reserve under our Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid.

And We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of our Displeasure, all our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever, or taking Possession of any of the Lands above reserved, without our especial leave and Licence for that Purpose first obtained.

And We do further strictly enjoin and require all Persons whatever who have either wilfully or inadvertently seated themselves upon any Lands within the Countries above described. or upon any other Lands which, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are still reserved to the said Indians as aforesaid, forthwith to remove themselves from such Settlements.

And whereas great Frauds and Abuses have been committed in purchasing Lands of the Indians, to the great Prejudice of our Interests. and to the great Dissatisfaction of the said Indians: In order, therefore, to prevent such Irregularities for the future, and to the end that the Indians may be convinced of our Justice and determined Resolution to remove all reasonable Cause of Discontent, We do, with the Advice of our Privy Council strictly enjoin and require, that no private Person do presume to make any purchase from the said Indians of any Lands reserved to the said Indians, within those parts of our Colonies where We have thought proper to allow Settlement: but that, if at any Time any of the Said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said Lands, the same shall be Purchased only for Us, in our Name, at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians, to be held for that Purpose by the Governor or Commander in Chief of our Colony respectively within which they shall lie: and in case they shall lie within the limits of any Proprietary Government, they shall be purchased only for the Use and in the name of such Proprietaries, conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose: And we do, by the Advice of our Privy Council, declare and enjoin, that the Trade with the said Indians shall be free and open to all our Subjects whatever, provided that every Person who may incline to Trade with the said Indians do take out a Licence for carrying on such Trade from the Governor or Commander in Chief of any of our Colonies respectively where such Person shall reside, and also give Security to observe such Regulations as We shall at any Time think fit, by ourselves or by our Commissaries to be appointed for this Purpose, to direct and appoint for the Benefit of the said Trade:

And we do hereby authorize, enjoin, and require the Governors and Commanders in Chief of all our Colonies respectively, as well those under Our immediate Government as those under the Government and Direction of Proprietaries, to grant such Licences without Fee or Reward, taking especial Care to insert therein a Condition, that such Licence shall be void, and the Security forfeited in case the Person to whom the same is granted shall refuse or neglect to observe such Regulations as We shall think proper to prescribe as aforesaid.

And we do further expressly conjoin and require all Officers whatever, as well Military as those Employed in the Management and Direction of Indian Affairs, within the Territories reserved as aforesaid for the use of the said Indians, to seize and apprehend all Persons whatever, who standing charged with Treason, Misprisions of Treason, Murders, or other Felonies or Misdemeanors, shall fly from Justice and take Refuge in the said Territory, and to send them under a proper guard to the Colony where the Crime was committed, of which they stand accused, in order to take their Trial for the same.

Given at our Court at St. James’s the 7th Day of October 1763, in the Third Year of our Reign.

GOD SAVE THE KING

George III (See Indigenous Foundations)

 

 

French Canadians in the United States

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Canada, United States, Voyageurs

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Jacques Marquette, S. J.

 Photo credit: The Encyclopædia Britannica[i]

Yesterday, I went to my Gmail account and read posts written by people who are following my blog. It was an education and I am not finished. At least two of my readers are investigating their French-Canadian and French ancestry.

The story of the French in North America is a lengthy tale and although Quebec is home to the largest concentration of French-speaking North Americans, French Canadians are everywhere in North America and a large number are in the United States. Let us raise that curtain.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

The first to leave New France and find a home in the United States are the Huguenots (Reformed Church of France or Calvinist Protestants). There were many Huguenots in New France. They left when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, in October 1685.[ii] For instance, whenever the Bourbeau family, my mother’s family, has a reunion, most “relatives” comes from the United States. The Bourbeau family was a Huguenot family. Three Bourbeau families found refuge in Canada, but two left for the United States in 1685 so they could remain Huguenots. One Bourbeau family converted to Catholicism. They stayed in New France and are my ancestors.

In an early edition of his Histoire du Canada, written between 1845 and 1848,  François-Xavier Garneau expressed the view that New France was weakened when the Huguenots left. However, he had to delete these comments to avoid condemnation on the part of the Church. His Histoire would have been à l’Index, or on the List of Prohibited Books.

The Voyageurs

The Tonquin in 1811 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many Canadiens who worked as voyageurs were employed by German- and Waldensian– born John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848).[iii] Upon retirement, they settled in Minnesota, but many moved to other parts of the United States.

Gabriel Franchère

In fact, John Jacob Astor so trusted one of his voyageurs, Gabriel Franchère (3 Nov. 1786 in Montreal – 12 April 1863 in St Paul, Minn), that he asked him to take voyageurs from New York to Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, in the Oregon Country. These voyageurs, some of whom were employees of the North West Company, based in Montreal, traveled on the Tonquin around Cape Horn. The Tonquin was purchased by American John Jacob Astor on August 23, 1810, the day John Jacob founded the Pacific Fur Company. It left New York on September 8, 1810 and reached its destination on March 22, 1811.

Gabriel Franchère returned to Montreal, married and wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. However his manuscript was edited and published by Michel Bibaud in 1820. After spending several years in Montreal, Franchère went back to the United States and died in St Paul, Minnesota.

It is possible to follow the path of Canadiens voyageurs who worked for John Jacob Astor. They gave French names to rivers, forts and other locations. For example, it has been suggested that Ozark comes from aux arcs, at the arches, because of bends in a river. I heard this on A&E.

Acadians of the Great Expulsion (1755-1763)

Other inhabitants of New France who became Americans are Acadians deported in 1755. Some boats did not sail down the Thirteen Colonies, but some did. The deportees stayed aboard until one of the colonies, Georgia, allowed them to leave their ships. A few of these Acadians found their way back to Canada’s current Atlantic provinces, but many traveled from Georgia to Louisiana, another province of New France, and are known as Cajuns.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized the Great Expulsion (le grand dérangement [the great disturbance]) by creating a fictional Évangéline whom Acadians transformed into their héroïne. The mythic Évangéline is alive in the mind of Acadians.

French Canadians and Acadians: US Migration

Moreover, close to a million French Canadians and Acadians left Quebec or Acadie because they could not find employment in Canada. This period of Canadian history, the USA Migration FR (1840-1930), is often referred to as l’Exode. I have an American grandfather. He could not find work in Canada. My grandmother stayed in Canada, but my grandfather rebuilt his life in Massachusetts. I would never have met him had my mother not decided that her children would have at least one grandfather. Her father had died.

In fact, many of the voyageurs were French Canadians or Canadiens who could not find employment on the shores of the St Lawrence. The thirty acres of land they had rented from a seigneur since the seventeenth century could no longer be divided. Some retired near the Red River in Manitoba, but the voyageurs who had been in the employ of John Jacob Astor became Americans. These could be considered exode French-Canadians.

Conclusion

The above seem the main groups of Canadiens who became Americans. But there may be others. For instance, the people of Louisiana, other than the Cajuns, were also French, but traditionally Canada and Acadie have been considered the provinces of New France. Until recently, Louisiana was not looked upon as a province of New France.

Therefore, the French-speaking inhabitants of Louisiana are the descendants of the French who settled in Louisiana and did not return to France after the Louisiana Purchase (1803). They are not descendants of French-Canadians. Acadiens, called Cajuns, are the descendants of Acadiens who were deported and settled in or near Baton Rouge when Louisiana was still a French colony. Other French-Canadians are descendants of voyageurs, or French-speaking Canadians who left New France to avoid religious persecutions or migrated south because they could no longer earn a living in Canada.

I will conclude by saying that French Canada and the United States are inextricably linked because of migrations from New France and Canada to the United States. Many, if not most, Americans of French-Canadian descent do not speak French, but we share cultural affinities and a collective memory. Historical events have linked Americans and French-Canadians. There is a brotherhood among us, a brotherhood I celebrate.

_________________________

[i] Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Marquette. Photograph.
Britannica Online for Kids. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.  <http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-101193>.

[ii] The Edict of Nantes, an edict of tolerance, was issued on 13 April 1598, by Henri IV, king of France and Navarre.  Henri IV had been a Huguenot.  He is famous for have said that “Paris (being King) was well worth a mass” (Paris vaut bien une messe). The first expeditions to Canada, Acadie to be precise, were undertaken during his reign by Pierre Du Gua de Monts (c. 1558 – 1628) a Huguenot, and Champlain, also a Huguenot but less visibly.

[iii]John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company (1808) and the Pacific Fur Company (June 23, 1810).

Pierre Du Gua de Monts
 © Micheline Walker
 November 13, 2012
 WordPress

A Folksong: Alouette, gentille alouette

09 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Art, Folksongs

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

  

edge Sparrow AND rOBIN, by Steffan Johnson*

A Folksong:  Alouette (Lark)

This song is an enumerative song.  In each stanza, a body part is added.
Here, a lark (une alouette) loses first its head, then its eyes, its beak, its back, its neck .
 
12 Alouette (please click on the title to hear the music)
 
CHORUS
Alouette, gentille alouette,              Lark, gentle lark,
Alouette, je t’y plumerai. (2)           I’ll take your feathers off.
 
1. Je t’y plumerai la tête. (4)          I’ll take the feathers off your head
Et la tête, et la tête.                       And your head, and your head.
Alouette, alouette, oh! 
CHORUS
 
2. Je t’y plumerai les yeux. (4)        I’ll take the feathers off your eyes
Et les yeux, et les yeux,                 And your eyes, and your eyes
Et la tête, et la tête.
Alouette, alouette, oh!
 
3. Je t’y plumerai le bec. (4)           I’ll take the feathers off your beak
Et le bec, et le bec,                        And your beak, and your beak
Et les yeux, et les yeux, (2)
Et la tête, et la tête. (2)
 
4. Je t’y plumerai le dos. (4)           I’ll take the feathers off you back
Et le dos, et le dos,                        And your back, and your back
Et le bec, et le bec, (2)                   beak, eyes, head 
Et les yeux, et les yeux, (2)
Et la tête, et la tête. (2)
 
5. Je t’y plumerai le cou. (4)           I’ll take the feathers off your neck
Et le cou, et le cou,                        And your neck, and your neck
Et le dos, et le dos, (2)                   back, beak, eyes, head
Et le bec, et le bec, (2) 
Et les yeux, et les yeux, (2)          
Et la tête, et la tête. (2)
 
_________________________
Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1998[1966]), p. 46.
*http://steffspainting.blogspot.com/
 

March 9, 2012

 

 

 
 

En roulant ma boule: a Folksong & a Voyageur Song

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Folksongs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Jongleur *

* from the Encyclopædia Britannica [i]
This song is almost identical to “C’est le vent frivolant.”  With folksongs, substituion is not uncommon.  One changes the melody, but keeps the same lyrics or words or keeps the melody and gives it new words.

According to Theodore C. Blegen, this is a rollicking “jongleur” song.  Jongleurs could be described as minstrels, but some also “juggled” balls and where therefore  particularly entertaining.

04 En roulant ma boule (click on the title to hear the song) [ii]
 
 
Chorus 
En roulant ma boule roulant,   Rolling my ball…
En roulant ma boule (2: repeat chorus)
 
1.  Derrière chez nous y-a-t’un étang (a pond), 
En roulant ma boule.
Trois beaux canards (ducks) s’en vont baignant (are bathing),
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant.
Chorus
 
2. Le fils du roi s’en va chassant,
En roulant ma boule.
Avec son grand fusil d’argent,
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant. 
Chorus
 
3. Visa le noir, tua le blanc,
En roulant ma boule.
O, fils du roi tu es méchant,
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant. 
Chorus
 
4. D’avoir tué mon canard blanc,
En roulant ma boule.
Par-dessous l’aile, il perd son sang,
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant. 
Chorus
 
5. Et toutes ses plumes s’en vont au vent,
Trois dames s’en vont les ramassant,
En roulant ma boule.
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant 
Chorus
 
6. C’est pour en faire un lit de camp,
En roulant ma boule.
Pour y coucher tous les passants,
Rouli-roulant, ma boule roulant. 
Chorus
 
1.  At the back of our house, there is a pond,
Three lovely ducks are bathing in it.
2. The king’s son is going hunting,
With his large silver gun.
3. Aims for the black duck, kills the white,
O you, the king’s song, you are bad.
4. You have killed my white duck,
Beneath his wing, he’s losing blood.
5. All of his feathers are blowing in the wind,
Three ladies go about picking them up.
6. It’s to make a feather bed.
For all those who are passing by. 
 

Jongleurs, minstrels

_________________________
[i] “jongleur.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/306035/jongleur>.
 
[ii] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs  (Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998[1966].
Université de Moncton’s 30-voice Male Choir
 

  

Tis the Wind, the Fickle Wind…, Folksong

28 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Duck

I am sending you the words to another voyageur song. This song is also entitled: Derrière chez nous.

* * *

C’est le vent frivolant (It is the Frivolous Wind)

Chorus or refrain
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2)
 
1. Derrière chez nous y-a-t’un étang
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole. 
Refrain
 
2.  Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines) 
Le fils du roi s’en va chassant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
3.  Visa le noir, tua le blanc,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Ô fils du roi tu es méchant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
4.  D’avoir tué mon canard blanc,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Par dessous l’aile il perd son sang,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
5.  Toutes ses plumes s’en vont au vent,
C’est le vent, c’et le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Trois dames s’en vont les remassant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain 
 

* * *

  
This song is a ballad.  Here is what it means: 
 
1. Behind our place, there is a pond, (Derrière chez nous, il y a un étang,) 
Three beautiful ducks are bathing, (Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,)
Tis the wind a-blowing, frivolous.
Refrain 
 
2. Three beautiful ducks are bathing, (Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,)
The king’s son is going hunting, (le fils du roi s’en va chassant,).
Tis the wind a-blowing, frivolous. 
Refrain
 
3. Aimed for the black one, killed the white, (Visa le noir, tua le blanc,)
Oh you, the kind’s son, you are mean, (Ô, fils du roi, tu es méchant,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 
4. To have killed my white duck, (To have killed my white duck,)
Blood is pouring from under his wing, (Par-dessous l’aile il perd son sang,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 
5. The wind is blowing all his feathers away, (Toutes ses plumes s’en vont au vent,) 
Three ladies are picking them up, (Trois dames s’en vont les ramassant,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 

03 C’est le vent frivolant

(please click on title to hear the song)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Songs of Voyageurs: À Saint-Malo

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

À Saint-Malo

Chorus 
Nous irons sur l’eau,
Nous y prom-promener,
Nous irons jouer dans l’île,
Dans l’île.
 
1. À Saint-Malo beau port de mer, (2)
Trois gros navires sont arrivés.
Chorus
 
2. Chargés d’avoine chargés de blé, (2)
Trois dames s’en vont les marchander.
Chorus
 
3. Marchand, marchand, combien ton blé ? (2)
Trois francs l’avoine, six francs le blé.
Chorus
 
4. C’est bien trop cher d’une bonne moitié, (2)
Montez, madame, vous le verrez.
Chorus
 
5. Marchand d’avoine n’a pas ton blé. (2)
Si je ne le vends, je le donnerai.
Chorus
 
6. Si je ne le vends, je le donnerai. (2)
À ce prix-là, on va s’arranger.
 
Chorus
Nous irons sur l’eau,
Nous y pro-promener.
Nous irons jouer dans l’île,
Dans l’île.
 
We’ll go on the water,
To wander around.
We’ll go play on the island,
On the island.
 

 * * *

Jacques Cartier, who claimed Canada for France (1534), left from Saint-Malo, but this song has nothing to do with him.
 
1.  First, it tells what a beautiful harbour Saint-Malo is and that three big ships (trois gros navires) have arrived (sont arrivés).
 
2.  Three ladies (trois dames) go to a merchant whose boats contain oat (chargés d’avoine) and wheat (chargés de blé[le]).  They want to know how much the wheat costs: combien ton blé ?
 
3.  How much is your wheat ? 
It’s three francs for the oat (l’avoine[f]) and six for the wheat (le blé).
 
4. They say it’s too expensive (trop cher), it should be half (la moitié) the price.
Come up (Montez) ladies, you’ll see it (vous le verrez).
 
5. The oat merchant does not have your wheat.
He says that if he does not sell it (si je ne le vends pas),  he’ll give it. (je le donnerai)
 
6. He repeats that if he does not sell it, he’ll give it.
At that price, (à ce prix-là), one can arrange something. (on va s’arranger) 
 
 

À Saint-Malo

(please click on title to hear the song)

* * *

 
 

À la claire fontaine

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada, Music

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

  

Barn on the York River, A. F. Casson*

 
*A. F. Casson, Group of Seven [i]
 
 
À la claire fontaine
 
À la claire fontaine,
M’en allant promener,
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle,
Que je m’y suis baigné.
 
Refrain
Lui y a longtemps que je t’aime,
Jamais je ne t’oublierai.
 
Sous les feuilles d’un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher,
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait.
Refrain
 
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait,
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai.
Refrain
 
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai,
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer.
Refrain
 
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer,
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité. 
Refrain
 
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité,
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusai.
Refrain
 
 
Je voudrais que la rose
Fût encore au rosier,
Et que le rosier même
À la mer fût jeté.
Refrain
 

Marius Barbeau*

* Marius Barbeau
 

This song, a ballad, is about a young man who walks by a clear fountain. The water (eau[f]) is so beautiful that he bathes (se baigner) in it. He lets himself dry (sécher: dry up) under the leaves (feuilles[fp]) of an oak-tree (chêne[m]). On the highest (la plus haute) branch, a nightingale (un rossignol [m]) sings. He tells the nightingale to sing (chanter) because he has a happy heart (tu as le cœur gai). You feel like laughing (rire), but I feel like crying (pleurer). I lost my lady friend (ma maîtresse) without deserving to (sans l’avoir mérité). Because I refused (Je lui ai refusai) [to give] her a bouquet of roses (la rose[f]).

f: feminine, m: masculin, p: plural

* * *

(please click on title to hear music)
 
Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, New Brunswick, Male Choir.[ii]

_________________________

[i] http://www.artcountrycanada.com/group-of-seven-casson.htm

[ii] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998 [1966]).

In these fairylike boats…

21 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada, Songs, Voyageurs

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Blue Heron, by Alfred Joseph Casson*

A. J. Casson was a member of the “Group of Seven”

Songs written by Voyageurs and “Literary Homeland” Songs

If we tally songs composed by the voyageurs, we have the following list:

  1. Les Roses blanches (White Roses),
  2. Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  3. Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis),
  4. Le Six Mai de l’année dernière (Last year on the Sixth of May),
  5. C’est dans la ville de Bytown (It’s in the Town of Ottawa),
  6. Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs),
  7. Petit Rocher (also known as La Complainte de Cadieux or Cadieux’s Lament),
  8. Mon Canot d’Écorce or Le Canotier (My Birchbark Canoe or The Canoeman).

Included are Les Roses blanches, Petit Rocher or Cadieux’s Lament, and C’est dans la ville de Bytown. One of these songs, Petit Rocher, could be a forestier song. When dealing with the songs of the voyageurs, too strict a categorization seems injudicious. For instance, we have sixty-five versions of Le Canotier. Consequently, Madeleine Béland suggests that the popularity of l’abbé Casgrain’s Canotier warrants its folklorisation: “Cette chanson, le Canotier, a obtenu la faveur du public à un point tel que l’on peut admettre sa folkorisation.” [i]  So, if we include Patrie littéraire or Literary Homeland songs, we reach a total of eight (8) voyageur songs.

La Complainte de Cadieux, or Cadieux’s Lament

As for Jean-Charles Taché’s Cadieux (Forestiers et Voyageurs, Chapter 15), Taché considers him a voyageur.  As the story goes, Cadieux is a French-Canadian voyageur of the 18th century who lived in the Ottawa River region. When his cabin was attacked by Indians, he sent his family down the rapids in his canoe and stayed behind to prevent pursuit. The Virgin Mary is supposed to have guided the canoe through the rapids, which were generally portaged. Pursued by the Indians through the forest, Cadieux gradually weakened; he dug his own grave, erected a cross above it and composed a ballad about his misfortune, which he wrote in blood on birchbark; it was found by those who came to look for him.” [ii]

However, Barbeau dismisses Cadieux or Cayeux, as a voyageur. He considers him a coureur de bois whose story is not a legend but a true story. [iii]  Given that French-speaking Canadians have often associated forestiers and voyageurs, both of whom travelled to the “pays d’en-haut,” (the north, or the countries above), it may be best in this case to leave a little room for interpretation. Taché’s novel, published in 1863, is entitled Forestiers et Voyageurs, which suggests he perceived kinship between the two groups. In Forestiers et Voyageurs, the main character, le père Michel, is a voyageur.

Folklore

In his article on the Ermatinger songs, Marius Barbeau quotes a passage from R. M. Ballantyne’s (24 April 1825 – 8 February 1894) Hudson Bay (1843). Ballantyne was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer who praises not so much the voyageurs’ rendition of À la claire fontaine and Les Roses blanches as the feelings they evoke. These feelings border on synesthésie, a combination of sensory stimulation (hearing, seeing, etc. at the same time):

In these fairylike boats (birch bark North canoes gaudily painted on the boys and stern), we swept swiftly (from Norway House) over Playgreen Lake, the bright vermilion paddles gleaming in the sunshine and woods echoing to the lively tune of “À la claire fontaine” sung by the two crews in full chorus.  While yet in the distance the beautifully simple and lively yet plaintive song, so well suited to the surrounding scenery and yet so different from any other air, breaks sweetly on the ear; and one reflects with kind of melancholy, how far the singers are from their native land (Lower Canada), and many weary days of danger and will pass before they can rest once more in their Canadian homes.  How strangely too upon their nearer approach is this feeling changed for one of exultation, as the deep and manly voices swell in chorus over the placid waters.  In the canoe, bounding merrily up the river, while the echoing woods and dells responded to the lively air of “Rose Blanche” sung by the men as we swept round point after point and curve after curve of the noble river.  I have seen four canoes sweep round a promontory suddenly and burst upon my view, while at the same moment the wild romantic song of the Voyageurs as they plied their brisk paddles struck upon my ear; and I have felt thrilling enthusiasm on witnessing such a scene.  With hearts joyful at the termination of their trials and privations, sung, with all the force of three hundred manly voices, on of their lively airs, which rising and falling in the distance as it was borne, first lightly on the breeze, and then more steadily as they approached, swelled out in the rich tunes of many a mellow voice, and burst at last into a long enthusiastic shout of joy.  Away we went then, over the clear lake, sing “Rose Blanche” vociferously. [iv]

As you may have noted, in the above excerpt, Barbeau mentions Rose Blanche, a  song which Frances Anne Hopkins also heard. I still doubt that Rose blanche was composed by voyageurs.  As Wentzel stated, the voyageur’s songs could be “smutty.”  So it is possible that Rose blanche was simply a favorite, as was À la claire fontaine.

Grace Lee Nute wonders why À la claire fontaine was a “favorite.”  I have reflected that the melody is lovely and that few songs could express the degree to which these men remembered?  They remembered France.  They remembered their home in Bas-Canada. They remembered the woman they loved: I have loved you for a long time / Never will I forget you. (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime / Jamais je ne t’oublierai.)

* * *

We’ve come to the end of this topic. I may list the songs. That would be a blog without comments. I wish we had Wentzel’s collection and the songs of the Falcon. They are lost. But we know that voyageurs sang while facing great dangers.

For more information on the voyageurs, I would suggest you read Carolyn Podruchny‘s Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. I bought it a few years ago and would classify it as a “good read.”

____________________

[i] Madeleine Béland, avec la collaboration de Lorraine Carrier-Aubin, Chansons de voyageurs, coureurs de bois et forestiers (Québec : Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1982.), p. 37.

(translation) This song has so pleased the public that we can consider it folklore.)

[ii] Nancy Schmitz, “Jean Cadieux,”
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/jean-cadieux/

[iii] Marius Barbeau, “La Complainte de Cadieux, coureur de bois (ca. 1709),” Journal of American Folklore, (Vol. 67, 1966 [1954], pp.163-183), p. 182.

[iv] Marius Barbeau, “The Ermatinger Collection of Voyageur Songs (ca. 1830),” The Journal of American Folklore (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, Vol. 67, 1966 [1954], pp. 147-161.), p. 150.

Anna Netrebko sings “Solveig’s Song” by Edvard Grieg

Canada Geese, by AJ Casson

Canadian Geese, by A. J. Casson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker

The Voyageurs: from Sea to Sea

16 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canadian History, Folksongs, Métis, United States, Voyageurs

≈ 99 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

fort_george

Fort Astoria (also called Fort George) (Photo credit: Fort Astoria, Wikipedia)

Grace Lee Nute writes that “[t]hey [the voyageurs] named the lakes and Rivers, prepared the Indians for the incursion of the white, and made it possible for missionaries to go among the tribes and convert and civilize them. They were humble, unassuming men, but this fact should not obscure their services and importance in American and Canadian history.” [i]

They may indeed have been “humble, unassuming men.” Ramsay Crooks, John Jacob Astor’s employee and then his successor, was also of this opinion, to the point that an exception was made to the Embargo Act of 1807. John Jacob Astor was allowed to hire British subjects.Truth be told, John Jacob Astor would have trusted Gabriel Franchère with his life. He had so much confidence in him that he asked him to take voyageurs around Cape Horn and back up to the west coast of the current United States. So there had to be more to men who jumped the rapids recklessly than mere recklessness.

Trapper’s Bride, Marriage Between an Amerindian and a Voyageur by Alfred Jacob Miller (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Voyageur and the Amerindians

If we were to draw a portrait of the voyageur, his relationship with the Amerindians would be an important factor. The hivernants or winterers, sometimes Métis, who signed a three-year contract and manned, first, the one fort and, later, the many forts as fur traders and explorers moved further and further into the interior learned the language of Amerindians and married Amerindians. Others would have killed them or exploited them. 

The voyageurs were indeed very capable men. They woke at three in the morning, washed, shaved, loaded the canoes and put them in the water in less than forty-five minutes. They travelled a reassuring distance before having breakfast. However, they depended on the Amerindians for guidance and they also depended on Amerindians and Métis for food. That kept the voyageurs humble.

Pemmican: food

The mangeurs de lard or ‘pork-eaters,’ the voyageurs who went back and forth between Montreal and a trading post ate “dried peas or beans, sea biscuit salt pork” and maize. (Wikipedia).  But the hommes du Nord, or North men, and the élite among them, the Athabasca men (North West Company), who went further and further west, did not have time to prepare food. They therefore ate pemmican. It was brought to the forts first by Amerindians and, later, by Amerindians and Métis. The pemmican trade grew in importance as forts were built that soon reached what is now northeast Alberta.

Jumping or “shooting” the Rapids: disobedience

Besides, they so wanted to avoid portages that they were not as docile as portrayed by Ramsay Crooks. In his diary, Nicholas Garry reports that his crew disobeyed orders. “A few minutes paddling brought us to the Portage de Petite Roche which is a dangerous Rapid but the Water being high we run it, which was great Folly…” Garry goes on to speak about Portage de l’Isle. “This is a very dangerous Rapid, and so many fatal Accidents have attended the Sauting [sic] of it that it has been interdicted [forbidden] to the Servants of both Companies [the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company  before the merger in 1821]. Our Men forgetting Orders and wishing to avoid the Trouble of carrying the Canoe run it and we escaped, though an Absolution of Sin in a severe Ducking would not have justified this Rashness. . . . In half an Hour we arrived at a Décharge* but our Steerman preferred running it and we had a narrow escape having just touched. A harder Knock would have broken our Canoe.”[iii]  

*at a décharge, the cargo could be left in the canoe and the men pulled the canoe with ropes, walking on each side of a river or channel.

Garry then speaks about an accident. A huge hole was made in the canoe. “It became necessary to consider how we should get on but the Canadian Voyageur soon find a Remedy and our Men were immediately occupied in repairing the Hole. The Wood furnished the material. Bark from the Birch Tree Wattape from the Root of the Pine, Splints made from the Cedar Tree and the Crossbars. In the Evening all was ready to start in the morning.”[iv]

I had imagined that the Canadians who accompanied me were the most expert canoe-men in the world. (Alexander MacKenzie)

From Coast to Coast

Were they disobedient or simply stretching their ability in preparation for travelling the River, the afore-mentioned Fraser River. They knew that they would face the worst possible conditions for canoeing. Before the trains, there had to be voyageurs to trace the path to the Pacific coast. Sir Alexander MacKenzie (1764 [Scotland] – 12 March 1820 [Scotland]), his voyageurs and Amerindians did reach the Pacific: “Here two canoes and seven natives took them down the river. In a few days the mouth of the stream and the sea came into sight. The great feat had been accomplished: North America had been crossed in northern latitudes from coast to coast for the first time.”[v] (See South Pass (Wyoming), Wikipedia.)

Simon Fraser travels down the River: the Fraser River  

The River is named the Fraser River, after Simon Fraser (20 May 1776 – 18 August 1862) a fur trader and an explorer. However, when reading and account of their descent, one is amazed at the feats of the voyageurs.  

“His [Fraser’s] name still attaches to the river he explored in 1808 at the greatest hazard to himself, his nineteen voyageurs, and four other companions.” Fraser writes that at one point “The nature of our situation . . . left us no choice, we were under the necessity, either of running down the Canoes, or of abandoning them: we therefore unloaded and provided each of them with five men.”[vi] 

Fraser also writes that they “were obliged to pass on a declivity which formed the border of a huge precipice, on loose stones and gravel which constantly gave way under their feet.”[vii]

According to Nute, one voyageur lost his way and got stuck among the rocks because of the material he was carrying on his back. Fraser writes that he “got so engaged among the rocks that he could neither move forward nor backward, nor yet unload himself, without imminent danger.” He was saved by the “leader of the party himself who crawled to the poor wretch’s assistance and by cutting the load loose and allowing it to be lost over the precipice saved his canoeman’s life.”[viii]

An Incident: the gun taken away

A little later, they met Amerindians who had never seen white men. One took a gun away from a voyageur and was about to shoot another Amerindian, not knowing the consequences, when a voyageur rushed to push the gun up so no one would be killed. “Once, when a curious Indian took the interpreter’s gun, one of the voyageurs saved the situation by knocking up the muzzle, which was aimed directly at some of the Indians, when the would-be investigator pulled the trigger.” Nute writes that “[t]he men had to be eternally vigilant standing guard at night, keeping the natives from the luggage, and yet convincing them of the friendliness of the whites.”[ix]

—ooo—

Making sense of the voyageurs is rather difficult. Yes, they were docile but, at times, they did not pay attention to orders. They were the canoemen and probably measured the risks, terrible risks. Most of the men who accompanied Admiral Sir George Back, FRS (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878) died of exposure, scurvy or hunger. However, from the very beginning of New France, they relied on North-American Indians, as they would not otherwise have survived. They were attacked by Amerindians, Iroquois in particular, and eight Jesuit missionaries, the Canadian martyrs, were the victims of Iroquois, also called Mohawks.   

Moreover, the habitants’ thirty acres started to shrink before Nouvelle-France was ceded to Britain. Families were large and the farms were divided among sons and could not be divided anymore. Voyageurs had a job, so families were proud when a boy did not grow too tall for the canoes. There had to be room for supplies and pelts under their seat.  As for the singing, it was better than feeling pity for oneself. These men found their happiness where they could. They were proud, so they turned obstacles into challenges and their singing entertained those who travelled with them. I like to compare them with the sailors who sang shanties while they toiled.

Canoe by Frances Anne Hopkins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Frances Anne Hopkins

Among explorers, we can name: Radisson, La Vérendrye, Lahontan, Pierre Le Sueur, Du Lhut, Perrot, La Salle, Nicolet; Alexander Henry, Jonathan Carver, Peter Pond, Sir Alexander MacKenzie, Simon Fraser, Sir John Franklin, Sir George Back and, to a lesser extent, Sir George Simpson and Norwegian W. F. Wentzel. Yet, we could also name the voyageur.

Love to everyone ♥

_________________________

[i] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (St. Paul, Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987 [1931]), p.10.

[ii] Nute, Op. Cit., p. 236.

[iii] Nute, Op. Cit., p. 69, quoting the “Diary of Nicholas Garry,” p. 129, p.133.

[iv] Nute, Op. Cit., pp. 70-71, quoting Garry, pp. 149-150.

[v] Nute, Op. Cit., p. 236, quoting “Mr. Simon Fraser, Journal of a Voyage from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast 1808,” in L. R. Masson, Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest, vol. 1 (London, 1824), pp. 157-221. 

[vi] Ibid. 

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Nute, Op. Cit., p. 239.

[ix] Nute, Op. Cit., p. 240.

[x] Wikipedia, Sir Alexander MacKenzie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Mackenzie_(explorer)

—ooo—

Johannes Brahms: Händel Variations, op. 24 -01
Grigory Sokolov  (born 1950)
 
c2b0d568-0be0-4798-8c58-d3ef0bc673e8© Micheline Walker
16 January 2012
WordPress