The Voyageurs
The romance of the canoe does not just stem from the era of exploration. The incredible journeys of the voyageurs add immensely to the history of canoe travel. These adventurers were divided into two groups: the Porkeaters or Comers and Goers, and the North Men or Winterers.
The Porkeaters paddled from Montreal each spring to Grand Portage, now the extreme northeastern tip of Minnesota. Their SOO-pound canoes were 25 to 40 feet long, laden with massive cargoes of rum and trade goods. In Grand Portage they camped and waited for the North Men to come from as far north as Fort Chipawayon on Lake Athabaska through the vast wilderness of Canada’s north west. The canoes of the North Men were smaller - 22 feet in length, the maximum size for river travel. The North Men brought with them cargoes of fur. At Grand Portage they switched cargoes and each party began the return journey.
The Porkeaters were mostly Quebeckers, while the North Men were frequently part Indian, scions of the union of early Quebec voyageurs and Indian women. The North Men were the elite of the voyageurs. To them, unexplored territories, dangerous rapids, and long portages were shrugged off as routine. On long portages each man carried two 90-pound packs; on short portages some carried more. And they always trotted, never walked. What made this even more remarkable is that they were physically small men. Large men took up too much space in the canoes, space that was needed for trade goods.
Their day started before daybreak and lasted until dark. They sometimes paddled 80 miles in one day. Traditionally they crossed the huge Lake Winnipeg in an orgy of self endurance. And even after they had beached their canoes, the day’s work was not over. They had to cook their meals and gum the frail canoes to stop leaks.
It was said of the voyageurs that they were “obsessed with a desire to be first.” Every canoe wanted to be in the lead. They paddled at full speed at all times. Those that did not drown or were not killed in accidents were old men at forty, worn out by the rigors of their occupation.
The Porkeaters were of a different temperament. They were skillful navigators, accustomed to big waters. Their journeys were less perilous, less physically demanding, and less frenzied. They had the Gallic zest for life which they showed in the color of their dress, in their jokes and laughter, and, most of all, in their songs.
R. M. Ballantyne, who canoed from Norway House on Hudson Bay to Lake of the Woods and from there eastward to Lachine in Quebec, describes the fur brigades, including the exhilarating songs of the voyageurs, in greater detail than any other early traveler. He states that every summer no less than 10 brigades departed, each numbering 20 or more canoes. “I have seen the canoes sweep around 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,” he wrote. “And with hearts joyful at the happy termination of their trials and privations, sang, with all the force of three hundred manly voices, one of their lively airs which swelled out in the rich tones of many a mellow voice.” (Hudson Bay, Blackwoods, 1850).
Even Washington Irving commented in his book, Astoria (Knickerbocker Press, 1836) on the singing of the voyageurs. “The steersman often sings an old traditionary French song with some regular burden in which they all join, keeping time with their oars,” he wrote. “The Canadian waters are vocal with these little French chansons that have been echoed from mouth to mouth and transmitted from father to son from the earliest days of the colony.”
The musical nature of the voyageurs was exploited by John Jacob Astor to publicize his American Fur Company. While a guest of the Beaver Club in Montreal, Astor arranged for a crew of Canadian voyageurs to paddle to Lake Champlain and from there down the Hudson River, singing their chansons, all the way to New York.
Today, the songs that the voyageurs sang to paddle by are treasures of musical folklore. Some would be considered ribald even in our liberated age.