Coureur de Bois

The Mighty River Flows
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The Mighty River Flows

Hail Brave hearts

Yes, it’s here, the spring has arrived, in snowy, blustery style,  In like a lion, with  heavy snow falls, March has ended the winter with a cold snap, that keeps us bundled up and happy.  Of course, the summer will eventually come, but now the trails are white.  The forest floor is covered, a late spring, with no drought in sight.

The itch is on, to turn the seasons, pull out the canoe and test the current.  Ice flows passing with the water as the melting winter turns to spring.  Catch us in our history, as we wave farewell to winter, the icy highways turn to melt waters and the dangerous ice flows temp.  No  more the sleighs to speed us along the slippery, white rivers, now it’s canoes and boats and water craft, to take our time away.

Go back, fine fellows, to days gone by, to times of yesteryear.  To the fur trade and the brave at heart the times of the voyageur.  A dangerous time of year, this is, when winter turns to spring.  The trails are wet, the rivers are thin ice and the progress becomes slow.  Take a nap and wait a week, a well deserved holiday.  The harshness of this difficult time, will melt the winter away.  Soon the canoe will be laden, with supplies to take inland.  To visit with the natives and to find a brand new land.  Off come the winter fur coats, hats and mitts are stored.  Onto another adventure, to the watery highways of this world.

A well traveled route, the St. Lawrence, filled with Coureur de Bois.  One of the most dangerous occupations of that lifetime, to travel, explore and trade in the great unknown wild.

http://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=25887&type=pge     Trois Riviers, Quebec

The canoes are large enough, they carry several men.  All trained and skilled in many ways, to tackle the obstacle at hand.  Come from far away, in European style, to make a living the hard way, adventure, in the Canadian wild.  A fearsome, mighty river, the St. Lawrence is cracking up.  Pretty soon, it will be show time, pack your bags and liven up.  No more naps or holidays, the spring torrents are flooding.  It’s an adventure too dangerous for us,  spring break up is not even for the daring.  Icy flows and chilly woes, we’ll wait for another day.  This is not the best of times, for watery, river play.

But if you were an itchy voyageur, with bills at home to pay, perhaps the tempting season, would  cast him adrift anyway.

A lovely camping trip, with lakes and rivers to follow, the Canadian rivers of highway, still bind us to our past.  Traditions of camping and canoeing, following well traveled routes.  Today, we love this great wild land and praise the nations splendor.  Our ancestors did a very fine job, of protecting and implementing the heritage that we covet today.  A land of unspoiled wonder, with historical routes to travel.  This is our fine country we still travel in style.  From winter sleigh to summer canoe, the adventure has never left us.

written by Dr.  Louise Hayes

April 18, 2018

Northern Ontario Canoe Trip,  The Nat River

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ie5jptrgY
And they are us
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And they are us

The heroes of the past haunt us with their defiant perseverance.  Here us,  oh mortal man, we are your blood, your kin, your heart, your soul, your mind.  We are your yesterdays, your todays and your tomorrows.  We are the spirits of the conscience that will not die.  We live forever, oh mortal human.  Live forever and you will never die.

We are the example of your spirit.  The uncontested might, the strength, the courage, the path less followed, but always sought after.  We are the yearnings of your soul.  The leaders of the pack, the fortitude of the confident, skilled, accomplished human from anywhere.  We choose ourselves, to be the champions, we choose our lives to be the heartbreak.  Follow our footsteps, everyday heroes, test your strength against ours and feel the worthy soul of a brilliant life, cast in clay, dust and joy.  All that we live for is joy.

Joy!  Feel your heart sing!  Your call to order.  Claim your place.  Choose your prize.  The hero is you.

To follow in the path of a brilliant ancestor is a call to challenge your own space and time.  Limitless resources, limitless time, limitless company.  The path is the same, the company different, the skills unknown.  Would you dare to pursue the same adventure?  Would you dare to be a voyageur?

http://www.tfo.org/emissions/rendezvousvoyageur/en/world/worklife/daybrigade.html

The rivers are still tumultuous.  As long as they ever were.  The North Saskatchewan River passes through three provinces.  The Columbia River’s headwaters are in Canada and it ends at the Pacific Ocean in the United States.  Hundreds of kilometers of travel in voyageur canoes. Would you be the awesome voyageur.  The weeks of travel in open canoes, paddling hundreds of kilometers of rivers, battling currants, weather and fatigue.  Epic voyages of grand adventure.  To retrace the paths of centuries old man.  To relive the challenge of that call to adventure, that companionship, endurance, nature and freedom.  The love of the open water, the risk and the self worth.  To be the champion!  To rise to the call  of your heart and your mind.  To cast aside the daily toil.  What is a human?  What is it that is humanly possible?  The unreachable star.

The test of strength is good for the body and the test of will is good for the mind.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fort-Langley-Canoe-Club-2013-Fraser-Brigade/195684620567080

Play!  The joy of being, the fun of it all.   Play!  For sport, for relaxation, for companionship, for fun and for your body.  Come you awesome human.  Follow your ancestors on a path to glory.  Come and join the grand adventure of your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLCBXdTA0Yg

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 23, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

The Fur Trade
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The Fur Trade

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and...

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and the later British trade at York Factory. The shading shows Rupert’s Land (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh the wonder of it all.  The endless beauty, the landscape the forest, the smell, the  sound, the quiet, the glory!  The freedom of adventure, the challenge of skills, the might of our strength to be pitted only against ourselves with the adversary being the landscape.  Oh the land!  The call of the great wild.  To hear the sound of the soul searching cry.  Come, mankind, venture forth oh diligent and aspiring soul.  For the land becons the voyageur and it calls them by name.

Almighty man, it whispers, come harvest my treasure.

From all walks of life the hero responds.  The lure of the magic entices.  The earth song sings and the sirens of the great north call to the almighty human.  Walk my soil, forge my rivers, the catch lies just beyond.

Feel your strength as the paddle pushes through the water.  Stroke after stroke of the rhythmic beat.  The voyageur, with canoes laden with supplies, pushes onward to a destiny of treasure.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzFHfS1BWm0

Fur.

The cry of the century and the wealth of the nation.  Fur!

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/fur-trade

The  boastful preoccupation of a wealthy nation, the fur trade entices the entrepreneur.  Come, almighty human, into the land of plenty.  The trade in furs will make you rich and there is plenty.

Explore the great rivers in your birch bark canoes, in your voyageur canoes.  The nation opens its waterways to you and presents the thousands of kilometers of river systems throughout the land.

The vast watershed of lower Canada is accomplished.  Onward we push to the limitless north.  The Hudson Bay and the rivers beyond.  Up  to the forts of York Factory, where the trade in furs grows to coin, bullion, gold!  The land is rich in harvested fur.  The champions of navigation press onward through the river systems, the tributaries, the lakes, the voyage north to trade.  The fur trade opens the nation to commerce, entrepreneurialism, wealth, fashion, merchants, the gold of the country.

From province to province, to province the voyageur paddles on.  Prosperity, trade, union, negotiation all for the almighty man, be he the king of a great nation, the sovereign of a tribe, the Coureur de Bois.  All are connected to the forest, the rivers the place of prosperity.  Fur!  The cry of the aristocrat becons and the sovereign lord of the forest responds.

Hail, almighty human, the sword and the musket never raised against yea.  The trade of commerce is the negotiation of the nation.  Blend, you great human, you moral man.   The fur trade and the conquest of the river systems opens the world to the intelligent human.  Yes, the mortal strength of one man cannot accomplish feats so daring, but the might, the privilege, the brilliant mind, knows no other recourse than to win.  Win the trust of the people, win the support for the venture in trade and in human harmony we bond and become.

Hail, almighty human.  A collection of huts is a settlement, a sanctuary.  Home!  The country is called Kanata, that is HOME.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 14,2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

Coureur des bois
by

Coureur des bois

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

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes