Early Voyageurs: The Incredible Adventures of the Fearless Fur Traders

Richard Wilbur is author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and H.H.
Stevens, 1878–1973, and co-author of Silver Harvest: The Fundy
Weirmen’s Story. His latest book is Horse-Drawn Carriages and Sleighs:
Elegant Vehicles from New England and New Bruns

With Canada’s early fur traders the focus of both of these books, I
wondered how much overlap they would have. Historically, the Hudson’s
Bay Company was known as the “Company of Adventurers.” The HBC
provided more than enough adventures for its hardy employees over its
long rule, and while both authors cover some of the same
themes—notably the role of the beaver and of the voyageurs Pierre
Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, and the final
prolonged turf fight between the HBC and its upstart Montreal rival, the
North West Company—Andra-Warner sticks to the HBC’s efforts to
establish its forts first and to the careers of its key figures (Prince
Rupert, who got the royal charter; James Knight, the governor obsessed
with finding gold; Henry Kelsey, the first HBC employee to venture into
the continent’s vast interior), as well as four lesser-known figures
(Mrs. Sergeant, wife of an early governor; her maid, Mrs. Maurice, who
“lived through harrowing times”; Isabel Gunn, an Orkney woman who
hid her gender identity until she gave birth to a son; and Thanadelthur,
a remarkable young Chipewyan woman who served as a guide and negotiator
and exerted great influence during her short 28 years).

Early Voyageurs is a well-researched and clearly written account of the
relatively short but exciting history of Quebec voyageurs as they
criss-crossed the vast Canadian interior to find beaver skins, which
they transported back to the North West Company in Montreal. Savage has
captured the spirit and the tenor of that age with detailed descriptions
of the daily and dangerous routines of the intrepid canoeists as they
penetrated deeper into the northern half of the continent in an effort
to beat their HBC competitors. Her account of the lives of those who
wintered over with their Aboriginal wives and families emphasizes more
the practical and particular. The chapter “A Day in the Life of a
Voyageur” is especially enlightening with its details on portaging, on
how to survive mosquitoes and blackflies, and of a special
“voyageur’s fund” for those no longer able to work.

It all adds up to refreshingly new looks at what many once considered a
boring segment of early Canadian history. I say hats off to the
publishers for producing highly readable histories.