Voyageur
The first Europeans to cross the North American continent
The first Europeans to cross the continent of North America were the fur trade explorers of the Northwest Trading Company and the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company. Travelling in Birch-bark canoes, they explored West from Hudson’s Bay (HBC) or Lachine, Quebec (NWC). Following the inland river and lake systems, and led by explorers like Alexander MacKenzie, Simon Fraser and David Thompson, they built trading posts, explored waterways and created the first maps of those regions. The backbone of these ventures; the men who paid with their sweat and blood, were the Voyageurs.
Header image: Fraser River near Spuzzum. Sections of Fraser’s River remain virtually untouched for more than 200 years since the first fur trade canoes passed this way.
*Photograph by Erik Prosser
Fort Langley National Historic Site. Insight into the life and times of the fur trade voyageurs may be gleaned from a visit to this historic site dubbed the birthplace of British Columbia. The fort sits on the site of the original Hudson’s Bay fort established in 1827, and features the original store (white building) from that era.
*Photographs by Erik Prosser
VOYAGEUR
They came by here, those voyageurs over water sweet as wine
Those bold adventurers of a long forgotten time
Long before the riverboats, before the pioneers
Their chansons echoed through the wilderness frontier
On the 1st of May the spring brigades would depart from old Lachine
With sweat and blood they’d muscled through the hellish terrain
Over rocks or through white water or the miles of cursed mire
To winter in the Chipywan, cold and huddled by a fire
Those nights went on forever with the cruel wind howling at the door
When each man prayed to hear the bells of sweet Saint Anne’s once more
To die in the Harlot’s Tavern! in tassels, sash and plume
Fol da, diddle di, re fol dadin-o
Rise up you bold Nor’wester, an hour before the dawn
The sun will set again before your toil is done
If you were here brave Voyageur, what stories you could tell
Of Fraser & MacKenzie & Thompson as well
Did you pulled upstream ‘till your back was bent?
The weight on the tumpline, did it twist your neck?
If you don’t lie in an unmarked grave along the killing portages
You died in the Harlot’s Tavern, a worn-out twisted wretch
Fol da, diddle di, re fol dadin-o
Rise up now bold Nor’wester, this hour before the dawn
Your song shall rise again before this day is done
Words & Music by Bruce Coughlan (SOCAN)