La Prairie Voyageurs and the Fur Trade
Presentation for the French-Canadian Heritage Society of California
October 27, 2019
I. — INTRODUCTION
I’ve spent a lifetime studying the fur trade in North America.
My interest was originally sparked during my youth when I grew up watching movies like, “Across the Wide Missouri,” (1951) and TV shows like Disney’s “Davy Crockett” (1955).
Later as a young adult I was treated to more Mountain Man movies including “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972), the “Centennial” TV series (1978) and “The Mountain Men”) (1980).
There was something magical about those early trappers and explorers known as Mountain Man and their Canadian counterparts the Coureurs des Bois and Voyageurs.
Between 1600, and the 1850s, they were the first to go into unmapped wilderness to discover the river routes, and establish the trails that would eventually become pathways for the folks who would settle the West.
Then in the mid 1980s I discovered Rendezvous Reenactments — folks who enjoy shooting muzzleloading rifles, dressing in 1840s period clothing, and reenacting a Mountain Man lifestyle.
Those Reenactments were sponsored by the National Muzzleloading Rifle Association and were modeled after Rocky Mountain gatherings — where trappers met with merchants to trade their furs for supplies, tobacco, and whiskey.
For my first Rendezvous I selected a voyageur costume, partly because I had been thinking about 'Pasquinel,' a character in the 1978, Centennial TV miniseries.
Pasquinel was a French-Canadian fur trader who had gone out to the Rocky Mountains to trade for beaver pelts.
I was already a passionate canoeist, so playing the part of a voyageur seemed appropriate.
A few years earlier, in 1972, an Aunt studying our family history told me about our French-Canadian ancestor named Passino.
I didn't know anything about our Passino, but I remember thinking it would be fun to find out he was a fur trader.
Fast forward to 2010, using the internet, I had been seeking information about my Passino ancestry for more than a dozen years, when I discovered the Passino surname had been anglicized from Pinsonneau.
A couple of weeks, after that discovery, I learned my Pinsonneau lineage began in 1665, when 1300 soldiers arrived in New France with the Carignan-Salières Regiment to fight the Iroquois.
It turns out, not only are there some fur traders in our family tree, but so far I’ve identified over 125 French-Canadian relatives linked to the fur trade between the 1620s and 1840s.
My ancestors all came from villages in the St. Lawrence Valley. Some came from the environs of Quebec, Trois-Rivières, and Montreal, but the vast majority were either born, married, or died in La Prairie de la Magdeleine.
Today, I would like to share their story with you…
I have many relatives from the same time period and area. Trois Rivieres, Saint Constant. They were french, although they have the name blackbird thrown in with all the french names. I am enjoying reading details about life in those times.
ReplyDelete