
Gabriel Franchère ( 3 November 1786 – 12 April 1863) was a
French Canadian
French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...
author and explorer of the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...
.
Franchère was born in
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
to Gabriel Franchère (4 March 1752 – 16 May 1832) and Marie-Félicité Morin (20 August 1760 – 28 September 1807). He later joined the
Pacific Fur Company
The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades among the United Kingdom of G ...
as a merchant apprentice, arriving at
Fort Astoria
Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary Fur trade, fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the ''Tonquin (1807 ship), Tonquin'', while another party tra ...
on the ''
Tonquin''.
After Astoria was sold to the
North West Company
The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...
, Franchère returned to Montreal overland in 1814. He was employed for a time by
John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting History of opiu ...
in Montreal.
[ He wrote ''Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America'',][ which was published in 1819. This work was translated into English and edited in 1851, and later re-released as part of the General Series of the Champlain Society in 1969. The untranslated version was one of ]Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...
's sources for his book ''Astoria''.[
]
The mountain Franchère Peak in the Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies () or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part of the Canadian Cordillera, w ...
was named in his honor in 1917.
References
External links
Gabriel Franchère
from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography
The ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'' (''DCB''; ) is a dictionary of biographical entries for individuals who have contributed to the history of Canada. The ''DCB'', which was initiated in 1959, is a collaboration between the University of Toro ...
The Quebec History Encyclopedia: Gabriel Franchère
from Marianopolis College
Marianopolis College is a private English-language college in the Canadian province of Quebec. Located in Westmount, Quebec, it is an anglophone college with a student body over 2,000. The General and Vocational Education College, known as a CE ...
*
''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''
*
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Canadian explorers
Explorers of Oregon
Oregon Country
Canadian non-fiction writers in French
Canadian male non-fiction writers
1786 births
1863 deaths
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