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Reflections
Fur trade once enlivened, enriched the Midwest : Reflections : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisFur trade once enlivened, enriched the Midwest
| by Roger Matile
| 11/15/2007
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By this time of year, those engaged in the fur trade in the 18th and 19th centuries here in Illinois were getting ready for the trapping season to begin.
The trade was seasonal, with the best furs collected during the winter months when pelts were thickest. In fact, the standard currency of the trade was the "prime winter beaver pelt," whose value was so standardized that the pelts could be literally used as cash.
Each spring, the canoe brigades left Montreal laden with trade goods and headed up the St. Lawrence River for the interior trading forts. In the late summer and early fall, the brigades returned east laden with furs that had been collected the previous winter and exchanged for trade goods.
Each brigade was comprised of numerous Montreal canoes. These giant craft were each about 36 feet long and were made by French Canadian and Native American craftsmen using the bark of the white birch.
The ancestor of the Montreal canoe was invented by the Chippewa people, who lived in the upper great lakes region. The craft were nimble and light, made with large sheets of thin birch bark laced onto a light frame made of split cedar. When the French colonials began the trade in furs with tribes in the interior of North America in the early 1600s, they adopted the bark canoe, and then proceeded to modify it for trading purposes.
For the initial step in the trade, getting goods to the trade forts in the interior and then transporting the furs collected by traders back to Montreal, large craft were required. Montreal canoes were simply scaled-up models of the traditional Chippewa bark canoe, sized to carry up to six tons of cargo with a crew of 8-10 voyageurs. The craft had to be capable of being portaged over the many rapids on the initial leg of the journey west, up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers and then down into Georgian Bay in Lake Huron. From there, the craft had to be capable of travel on the Great Lakes to Michilimacinac at the Straits of Mackinac and from there to posts farther inland, including Detroit, Green Bay and Chicago.
At the many portages on the trip west, each canoe was unloaded and the cargo packed by voyageurs over the often arduous portages. The canoes themselves then had to be portaged over the same trails.
Trade goods on the westward leg and pelts on the eastbound leg were all packed into compact bales of a standard size, each weighing about 80 lbs. (called piéces), much like shipping containers are standardized for overseas shipment today. At portages, each voyageur was expected to carry three to four piéces per trip over the trail. The canoe, which could weigh nearly 1,000 lbs after absorbing water during a day's travel, was physically picked up and carried upside down over the portage trails by four of the hardy canoemen.
Voyageurs were picked for their strength, hardiness, and size, with short, compact body shapes preferred—the smaller the voyageur, the more cargo. The avant sat in the bow paddling position and was picked for strength and keen eye. The avant was expected to watch for anything that could endanger the fragile bark canoe hull and help steer the craft. In the stern was the gouvernail, the canoe's commander, responsible for steering the craft. Seated amidships were the milieux, the hardy paddlers who were the heart and soul of the fur trade.
In calm weather, voyageurs could paddle these large canoes at about seven mph. At the end of each hour, the gouvernail called a ten or so minute halt so all hands could smoke a pipe of tobacco. As a result, voyageurs calculated distances traveled not in miles, but in how many pipes between this point and that.
Each canoe carried two wooden poles and square of canvas. At night, the canoe was pulled ashore and turned onto its side after the cargo was emptied. The canoe, poles, and canvas were used to create a dry lean-to shelter for crew and cargo. Under way on a lake, with a following wind, one pole could be stepped as a mast and the canvas hoisted on the other as a sail.
At the western posts, the cargoes were unloaded and trade goods moved inland in smaller craft. Originally, North canoes, about 25 feet in length, were used. These carried crews of six and could handle about three tons of cargo.
Bark canoes worked fine in the north country where birch trees were available for repairs. But in the southern lakes area, like Illinois, they were less practical. Near the end of the fur trade era, trading companies were using sturdier Mackinaw boats for most purposes. These double-ended craft could be rowed or sailed as well as portaged when necessary. And they required far less maintenance than their birch bark forebears.
There were two major trade routes to the interior of Illinois from Michilimacinac, and several minor ones. One went southeast to Detroit, while the other went southwest down to Green Bay or Chicago. From Green Bay, the route went up the Fox River of Wisconsin to modern Portage, where the carry was made to the Wisconsin River and then down to the Mississippi. From Chicago, the route went up the Chicago River to Mud Lake and then over the arduous Chicago Portage to the Illinois River. At times this portage could be 60 miles long, depending on the water levels in the DesPlaines River. As a result, the trading companies maintained oxen and wagons to haul the brigades of canoes or boats down the portage trail.
Due to its wide, shallow course, the Fox River was seldom used as a fur trade route.
Today, little of this early area history is remembered, although there are reminders if you know where to look. At 7 p.m. tonight at the Little White School Museum in Oswego, part of a program on the community's history up to 1865 will take a look at this interesting, and little-known facet of area history and lore.
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