Bonjour, almighty human. Welcome to this day.
This is an awesome day of great courage, adventure, exploration and discovery. A day filled with the life of brilliant mankind, the negotiator, the peacekeeper, the intellectual, the athlete.
The investigation and settlement of our great nation comes from the brilliant aspirations of great minds, healthy bodies, bold and courageous spirit and constant daring. To travel where no European had gone before. To take the challenge of everyday courage and to explore a land of unknown peril, sometimes, to fight the unbeatable foe.
To take up trade items and to develop trade routes through a land of changing conditions, constantly battling the weather, negotiating treaties, fighting the currants of swift flowing rivers. The constant negotiation for good relations, the constant perils of unseen deathtraps. The unknown, always, the unknown.
The passage into the interior of the country was mainly by water. Rivers, lakes, canoes! The canoe of the Coureur de Bois, laden with trade items to maintain the negotiated peace with the native peoples. Trade for wealth, trade for exploration, trade for peace. A land established by the peaceful negotiation of mutual prosperity.
http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_furtrade/fp_furtrade2.html
Hail Bravehearts! For the peace amongst you was for the beneficial, mutual prosperity of the peoples of the nation. The negotiated peace was trade to make your lives easier, trade to make your lives more secure, trade to reduce barriers, strengthen bonds, build congenial relationships, allow exploration and the building of forts and settlements. Trade, without hostility, trade to connect to an unknown peoples, trade for influence and to reduce war faring.
Trade to encourage contact, to learn new ways, to respect. Trade. The nation was built from trade. Not only trade in commodities, but trade in culture and language as well. The curiosity of the peoples reduced their hardships and the mutual respect saved their lives.
The Coureur de Bois, with canoes laden with items for trade, navigated the lakes and river systems of this great land. They explored the country, opened the nation, found new river highways to travel throughout the country. They negotiated the great peace, survived the call to the wild.
Come, beckons the great land. Come!
The courageous explorers paddled their canoes into the heart of the dark, foreboding stillness. The great wild! Where only the birds call and the penetrating quiet of life deafens the thunder of remote civilization. Gone is the city. Now, the only street is the river. The thunder is now the rapids and the gossip comes from the birds.
Wonderful peace! The wild allures. The remote shore, the distant horizon, the untravelled land. The unrivalled superiority. All of this for the freedom of adventure, for the challenge of a great day, a life of unrivalled adventure. All of this for the building of a great nation, a great life and a bold and daring existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coureur_des_bois
Welcome, to the Coureur de Bois for the lasting peace. For exploration and community and for the fight that beats the unbeatable foe.
Written by Dr. Louise Hayes
June 13, 2013