Much of the mystic of this trip was the history of the route we canoed. Historic information about specific sites we pass on our trip are included in the Route webpage. References are on a separate page.
The voyagers were hired labor that belonged to the period after 1763. They were used to transport furs from the Athabasca country in northern Saskatchewan to Montreal, a distance of about 3000 miles. This took about 5 months.
The voyageur has been described as dressed in "…a short shirt, a red woolen cap, a pair of deer skin leggins which reach from the ankles to a little above the knees, and are held up by a string secured to a belt about the waist, the azion ["breech cloth"] of the Indians, and a pair of deer skin moccasins without stockings on the feet. The thighs are left bare. This is the dress of voyageurs in summer and winter." Also included would be a blue capote, the inevitable pipe, a gaudy sash, and a gay beaded bag or pouch hung from the sash.
The voyageurs averaged 5 ft. 6 in. tall, could regularly paddle 15 to 18 hours a day and could carry 200 to 450 pounds over portages "at a pace which made unburdened travelers pant for breath in their endeavor not be left behind". Another reference stated that his men "took the canoe out of the water, mended a breach in it, reloaded, cooked breakfast, shaved, washed, ate and re-embarked — all in fifty seven minutes!". He further stated that "…if he shall stop growing at about five feet four inches, and be gifted with a good voice, and lungs that never tire, he is considered as having been born under a most favourable star."
In 1832, the scientist McKenny was studying the area and asked his men at seven in the evening if they wished to stop for the night. They replied that they were still fresh. His thoughts were "They had been almost constantly paddling since 3 o'clock this morning… 57,600 strokes with the paddle, and 'fresh yet!' No human beings, except the Canadian French, could stand this. Encamped … at half past nine o'clock, having come to-day seventy-nine miles."
The above descriptions are from Grace Lee Nute's book 'The Voyageur' (Ref.8.)
The voyageurs had their own ways of measuring time and distance. While paddling, the distance/time was measured in pipes. A pipe was about a 10 to 15 minute break taken every hour when they would stop paddling, rest and smoke their pipe. Thus a 15-pipe day was a day they paddled 15 hours.
For portages, the unit of measure was the pose or about a third of a mile. Since many portages required multiple passes, the voyageurs would carry the first load about a third of a mile or a pose, set it down, and go back for another load which would be carried to the same point and then set down. The men did not rest at the poses. A three pose portage was a one mile long portage.
Three legs were used by some of the companies. The first was the Montreal to Grand Portage and/or Fort Williams leg. This portion of the trip was made in large cargo canoes called Canot de Maiter. These birch bark/cedar canoes were about 36 ft. long, 6 ft. across at the widest point and weighed about 600 lbs. A detailed description of how the Indians built birch-bark canoes in given by David Lavender (Ref. 9, p 44-48). By 1770 there was a factory in Trois Rivieres building canoes using essentially the same process as used by the Indians. One of these large canoes cost about $500 in 1977 currency.
When portaged, the canoes were carried by four to six voyageurs in an inverted fashion like we portage canoes today. These canoes would carry about three tons of cargo or about sixty-five ninety-pound packs. With person gear and crew (6 to 10 voyageurs), the fully loaded canoe weighed about 4 tons when being paddled. On the trip from Montreal, the cargo consisted of goods to be traded for furs; on the return trip the cargo was furs.
The second leg of the route was from Grand Portage to Rainy Lake. This was an intermediate route that was required to give the voyageurs who wintered in northern Saskatchewan sufficient time to return to the north county before the lakes and rivers froze over. For this route, the voyageurs used the smaller North canoes. These canoes were about 25 ft. long and weighed about 300 pounds. They could carry about 1.5 T of cargo which consisted of 10 – 30 pieces weighing about 90 pounds each. These canoes were portaged by two voyageurs in the upright position resting on their shoulders. The smaller canoes were used because the larger ones were too big for the rivers. A typical crew was 5 to 6 people and they were allowed to have forty pounds of personal gear.
The voyageurs for the first two legs were call 'pork-eaters'. This name came from their diet which consisted primarily of dried peas/beans/corn, sea biscuits and salt pork. A typical evening meal consisted of a quart of corn or peas and one to two ounces of grease, port or bacon. This was cooked in water and biscuits added to the mix. When ready to eat, it was so thick that "a stick would stand upright in it." It was estimated that the voyageurs had a 4000 – 5000 calorie per day diet.
In 1809 Alexander Henry described the corn as "...prepared by boiling it in a strong lye, after which the husk may be easily removed; and it is next mashed and dried. In this state it is soft and friable like rice. The allowance for each man on the voyage is a quart a day; and a bushel with two pounds of prepared fat is reckoned to be a month's subsistence." (Ref. 10, p. 33)
The voyageurs who traveled between the Athabasca country and Rainy Lake were called 'winters'. They were experienced voyageurs who spent the winter trading for furs to be transported to Montreal the next spring. The diet of these voyageurs consisted primarily of Pemmican. Pemmican is pressed buffalo meat, pounded fine, to which hot grease was added. It is eaten as prepared or sometimes made into a kind of soup by boiling in water and adding flour. This dish is called rubbadoo.
There is much written about the canoeing exploits of the voyageurs and explorers. What is often overlooked is the fact that they were accomplished in winter travel as well using dog sleds and snowshoes. William McGillivray wrote that he and Alexander Mackenzie traveled 700 miles on snowshoes to spend Christmas with a friend!
The family of Pierre Boucher was one of the most famous and remarkable families in New France. Pierre was governor of Trois Rivieres and played a major role in the defeat of the Iroquois Indians in the 1660's. His daughter Marie married a soldier at the age of twelve and had thirteen children, eight of which survived. The youngest surviving son was Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Verendrye who was described as "a famed and in some ways overrated explorer who, despite many missteps, did lay out the first stages of a workable canoe route across the middle part of the continent." (Ref. 9, p 172) He was born in 1683 and his father died when he was four or five. He enlisted in the Canadian militia when he was nineteen and fought in battles in Massachusetts and then in the battle of Flounders in 1709. In this battle he was left for dead, but was found alive by the enemy and spent fifteen months in prison. After his release he returned to Canada and was married at the age of 27; he had four sons and two daughers.
During this time he set up a trading post on the portage at the St. Maurice River where he learned much about the west from those traveling over the portage. In 1726 he became second in command to his oldest brother for the "Postes du Nord", the posts on the northern shore of Lake Superior, and was stationed at Ft. St. Ann on the west end of the river leading to Nipigon Bay. In 1927, he replaced his brother at Kaministiquia near present day Thunder Bay.
The Assinibonine Indians talked about a shorter route than the Kaminsitiquia route followed by de Noyon in 1688 and used at that time. In 1731, La Verendrye organized an exploration of this route. His nephew, Christopher Duforst, Sieur de La Jereraye, was second in command and three of his sons, Jean Baptiste (age 17), Pierre, Jr. (16) and Francois (15) were part of the expedition. La Jereraye was the son of an explorer/trader of the midwestern United States. The expedition arrived at the mouth of the Pigeon River on Aug. 26, 1731 at which time the crew mutinied. They were able to recruit a few willing to go forward. La Jereraye and Jean Baptiste stayed and explored the trail (Grand Portage) to navigable water while La Verendrye took the remaining crew back to Kaminsitiquia where he stayed for the winter. La Jereraye et.al. explored the route to Rainy Lake where they established Fort St. Pierre, named for La Verendrye, on the north bank of the Rainy River and spent the winter. The fort consisted of two two-room cabins enclosed by a stockade 150-ft. square. The stockade was made of a double row of pickets 13 ft. tall.
In the spring of 1732, they returned to Kaminsitiquia. On June 8, 1732, La Verendrye, two sons, his nephew La Jereraye and seven canoes of men left for Fort St. Pierre to 'proceed with the discovery'. They arrived at Ft. St. Pierre in early July having "took great care to improve all portages by which we had passed". On July 19, 1732, they continued west on the Rainy River accompanied by "more than 50 canoes of savages". (Ref. 16, p 436) They left a 'handful' of people at Ft. St. Pierre. When moving west from Fr. St. Pierre "with fifty canoes of excited Cree, Monsoni and Assiniboine families" to Lac des Bois (Lake of the Woods) they stopped half way to the lake and built Ft. Charles. La Verendrye's son Jean Baptiste was later killed by Sioux Indians in 1735 and is buried at Ft. Charles.
The above is condensed from "Winner Take All" by David Lavender, Chapters XIII and XIV. (Ref. 9)
La Verendrye and Ft. Charles
Intro, Equipment, Personal Equipment, Route, Menus
Alexander Mackenzie
Grand Portage
Exit T2K
Last updated: September 2, 2000
Reformatted: Nov. 2013