The Voyageurs May Be Said To Have Sprung Up Out Of
The Fur Trade, Having Originally Been Employed By The Early
French Merchants In Their Trading Expeditions Through The
Labyrinth Of Rivers And Lakes Of The Boundless Interior.
They
were coeval with the coureurs des bois, or rangers of the woods,
already noticed, and, like them, in
The intervals of their long,
arduous, and laborious expeditions, were prone to pass their time
in idleness and revelry about the trading posts or settlements;
squandering their hard earnings in heedless conviviality, and
rivaling their neighbors, the Indians, in indolent indulgence and
an imprudent disregard of the morrow.
When Canada passed under British domination, and the old French
trading houses were broken up, the voyageurs, like the coureurs
des bois, were for a time disheartened and disconsolate, and with
difficulty could reconcile themselves to the service of the new-
comers, so different in habits, manners, and language from their
former employers. By degrees, however, they became accustomed to
the change, and at length came to consider the British fur
traders, and especially the members of the Northwest Company, as
the legitimate lords of creation.
The dress of these people is generally half civilized, half
savage. They wear a capot or surcoat, made of a blanket, a
striped cotton shirt, cloth trousers, or leathern leggins,
moccasins of deer-skin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from
which are suspended the knife, tobacco-pouch, and other
implements. Their language is of the same piebald character,
being a French patois, embroidered with Indian and English words
and phrases.
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