A New And Anomalous Class Of Men Gradually Grew Out Of This
Trade.
These were called coureurs des bois, rangers of the woods;
originally men who had accompanied the Indians in their hunting
expeditions, and made themselves acquainted with remote tracts
and tribes; and who now became, as it were, peddlers of the
wilderness.
These men would set out from Montreal with canoes
well stocked with goods, with arms and ammunition, and would make
their way up the mazy and wandering rivers that interlace the
vast forests of the Canadas, coasting the most remote lakes, and
creating new wants and habitudes among the natives. Sometimes
they sojourned for months among them, assimilating to their
tastes and habits with the happy facility of Frenchmen, adopting
in some degree the Indian dress, and not unfrequently taking to
themselves Indian wives.
Twelve, fifteen, eighteen months would often elapse without any
tidings of them, when they would come sweeping their way down the
Ottawa in full glee, their canoes laden down with packs of beaver
skins. Now came their turn for revelry and extravagance. "You
would be amazed," says an old writer already quoted, "if you saw
how lewd these peddlers are when they return; how they feast and
game, and how prodigal they are, not only in their clothes, but
upon their sweethearts. Such of them as are married have the
wisdom to retire to their own houses; but the bachelors act just
as an East Indiaman and pirates are wont to do; for they lavish,
eat, drink, and play all away as long as the goods hold out; and
when these are gone, they even sell their embroidery, their lace,
and their clothes.
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