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Voyageurs
The voyageurs (; ) were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the '' Pays d'en Haut'' and the '' Pays des Illinois'') and times where transportation of materials was mainly over long distances. The voyageurs were regarded as legendary. They were heroes celebrated in folklore and music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted. Despite the fame surrounding the voyageur, their life was one of toil and not nearly as glorious as folk tales make it out to be. For example, they had to be able to carry two bundles of fur over portages. Some carried up to four or five, and there is a report of a voyageur carrying seven bundles for half of a mile.Mike Hillman, "La Bonga: The Greatest Voyageur" Boundary Waters Journal Magazine, Summer 2010 Issue, pp 20–25 Hernias were comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American Fur Trade
The North American fur trade is the commercial trade in furs in North America. Various Indigenous peoples of the Americas traded furs with other tribes during the pre-Columbian era. Europeans started their participation in the North American fur trade from the initial period of their colonization of the Americas onward, extending the trade's reach to Europe. European merchants from France, England and the Dutch Republic established trading posts and forts in various regions of North America to conduct the trade with local Indigenous communities. The trade reached the peak of its economic importance in the 19th century, by which time it relied upon elaborately developed trade networks. The trade soon became one of the main economic drivers in North America, attracting competition amongst European nations which maintained trade interests in the Americas. The United States sought to remove the substantial British control over the North American fur trade during the first decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North West Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge. Before the Company After the French landed in Quebec in 1608, spread out and built a fur trade empire in the St. Lawrence basin. The French competed with the Dutch (from 1614) and English (1664) in New York and the English in Hudson Bay (1670). Unlike the French who travelled into the northern interior and traded with First Nations in their camps and villages, the English made bases at trading posts on Hudson Bay, inviting the indigenous people to trade. After 1731, pushed trade west beyond Lake Winnipeg. After the British conquest of New France in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coureur Des Bois
A coureur des bois (; ) or coureur de bois (; plural: coureurs de(s) bois) was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who travelled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with First Nations peoples by exchanging various European items for furs. Some learned the trades and practices of the indigenous peoples. These expeditions were part of the beginning of the fur trade in the North American interior. Initially they traded for beaver coats and furs. However, as the market grew, ''coureurs de bois'' were trapping and trading prime beavers whose skins were to be felted in Europe. Evolution While French settlers had lived and traded alongside Indigenous people since the earliest days of New France, coureurs des bois reached their apex during the second half of the 17th century. After 1681, the independent coureur des bois was gradually replaced by state-sponsored voyageurs, who were workers associated with licensed fur traders. They tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Canadians
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to French colonists who settled in Canada beginning in the 17th century or to French-speaking or Francophone Canadians of any ethnic origin. During the 17th century, French settlers originating mainly from the west and north of France settled Canada. It is from them that the French Canadian ethnicity was born. During the 17th to 18th centuries, French Canadians expanded across North America and colonized various regions, cities, and towns. As a result people of French Canadian descent can be found across North America. Between 1840 and 1930, many French Canadians immigrated to New England, an event known as the Grande Hémorragie. Etymology French Canadians get their name from ''Canada'', the most developed and densely populated region of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay (department store), Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay ( in French). After incorporation by Kingdom of England, English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the ''de facto'' government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned (the entire Hudson Bay drainage basin, known as Rupert's Land) to Canada in 1869 as part of the Deed of Surrender, authorized by the Rupert's Land Act 1868. At its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British North America, British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portage
Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ''portage.'' The term comes from French, where means "to carry," as in "portable". In Canada, the term "carrying-place" was sometimes used. Early French explorers in New France and French Louisiana encountered many rapids and cascades. The Native Americans carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. Over time, important portages were sometimes provided with canals with locks, and even portage railways. Primitive portaging generally involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over one's shoulders and the center strut may be designed in the style of a yoke to facilitate this. Historically, voyageurs often employed tump line ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marten
A marten is a weasel-like mammal in the genus ''Martes'' within the subfamily Guloninae, in the family Mustelidae. They have bushy tails and large paws with partially retractile claws. The fur varies from yellowish to dark brown, depending on the species; it is valued by animal trappers for the fur trade. Martens are slender, agile animals, adapted to living in the taiga, which inhabit coniferous and northern deciduous forests across the Northern Hemisphere. Classification Results of DNA research indicate that the genus ''Martes'' is paraphyletic, with some studies placing ''Martes americana'' outside the genus and allying it with '' Eira'' and '' Gulo'', to form a new New World clade. The genus first evolved up to seven million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Fossils Several fossil martens have been described, including: *†''Martes campestris'' (Pliocene) *†''Martes wenzensis'' (Pliocene) *†''Martes vetus'' (Pleistocene) Another described fossil species, ''Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and by investing in real estate in or around New York City. He was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi- millionaire in the United States. Born in Germany, Astor emigrated to England as a teenager and worked as a musical instrument manufacturer. He moved to the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Seeing the expansion of population to the west, he entered the fur trade and built a monopoly, managing a business empire that extended to the Great Lakes region and Canada, and later expanded into the American West and Pacific coast. Seeing a decline in demand due to changing European tastes, he got out of the fur trade in 1830, diversifying by investing in New York City real estate. Astor was highly wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edict
An edict is a decree or announcement of a law, often associated with monarchism, but it can be under any official authority. Synonyms include "dictum" and "pronouncement". ''Edict'' derives from the Latin edictum. Notable edicts * Telepinu Proclamation, by Telipinu, king of the Hittites. Written c. 1550 BC, it helped archeologists to construct a succession of Hittite Kings. It also recounts Mursili I's conquest of Babylon. * Edicts of Ashoka, by the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, during his reign from 272 BC to 231 BC. * Reform of Roman Calendar, Julian Calendar, took effect on 1 January AUC 709 (45 BC). * Edictum perpetuum (129), an Imperial revision of the long-standing Praetor's Edict, a periodic document which first began under the late Roman Republic (c.509–44 BC). * Edict on Maximum Prices (301), by Roman Emperor Diocletian. It attempted to reform the Roman system of taxation and to stabilize the coinage. * Edict of Toleration (311), by Galerius before his death. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Fur Company
The American Fur Company (AFC) was founded in 1808, by John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant to the United States. During the 18th century, furs had become a major commodity in Europe, and North America became a major supplier. Several British companies, most notably the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company, were eventual competitors against Astor and capitalized on the lucrative trade in furs. Astor capitalized on anti-British sentiments and his commercial strategies to become one of the first trusts in American business and a major competitor to the British commercial dominance in North American fur trade. Expanding into many former British fur-trapping regions and trade routes, the company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest and wealthiest businesses in the country. Astor planned for several companies to function across the Great Lakes, the Great Plains and the Oregon Country to gain control of the North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Athabasca
Lake Athabasca (; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , " herethere are plants one after another") is located in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake is 26% in Alberta and 74% in Saskatchewan. History The name in the Dene language originally referred only to the large delta formed by the confluence of the Athabasca River at the southwest corner of the lake. Prior to 1789, Sir Alexander Mackenzie explored the lake. In 1791, Philip Turnor, cartographer for the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrote in his journal, "low swampy ground on the South side with a few willows growing upon it, from which the Lake in general takes its name Athapison in the Southern Cree tongue which signifies open country such as lakes with willows and grass growing about them". Peter Fidler originally recorded the name for the river in 1790 as ''the Great Arabuska''. By 1801, the name had gained a closer spelling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otter
Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among other animals. Etymology The word ''otter'' derives from the Old English word or . This, and cognate words in other Indo-European languages, ultimately stem from the Proto-Indo-European language root , which also gave rise to the English word "water". Terminology An otter's den is called a holt or couch. Male otters are called dogs or boars, females are called bitches or sows, and their offspring are called pups or cubs. The collective nouns for otters are bevy, family, lodge, romp (being descriptive of their often playful nature) or, when in water, raft. The feces of otters are typically identified by their distinctive aroma, the smell of which has been described as ranging from fres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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