In April, the fur companies in or near Montreal, Canada, were busy organizing the spring brigades —
ordering new canoes, repacking trade goods, selecting canoemen, signing contracts.
In May, as soon as the fur companies received word that the ice
was gone from the waters their voyageurs were to traverse, a thousand men and more, mostly
French Canadians, surged out of Lachine, Canada, to begin their trek. In their two-month trip to Grand Portage, they would cross wild rivers and two of the
Great Lakes in canoes laden with up to three tons of trade goods.
After meeting at the annual Rendez-vous, most of those voyageurs would head back, their trade goods exchanged for an equal weight of furs — beaver, if possible, but also fox, marten, fisher, wolf and many others.
Nikki
