Since the heyday of the French-Canadian voyagers and American mountain people became the early working horses, the development of cooking has come a long way. They bear the burden of the early Canadian and American fur trade and dangerous modern, well-equipped high-tech The kitchen makes it possible to eat at your convenience.

In popular folklore, the fur trade in the American Far West is generally believed to have been started by the famous Lewis and Clark expedition member John Coulter. When they returned to St. Louis, Missouri from their winter home in Fort Krathorpe on the south bank of the Columbia Estuary, they stayed in the unknown western wilderness near the end for nearly two years. They arrived in Mandan near present-day Mandan, North Dakota in the spring of 1806. Dan Village.

There, they met two pioneers, Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson, who went to the upper Missouri River to hunt for fur. Colt found Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and asked for permission to join Hancock and Dixon as the only person allowed to leave the expedition before completion. Because of his exemplary service throughout the ordeal, the captains agreed to his request, and thus began two extraordinary adventures and wanderings. During this period, among other achievements, Colt “discovered” the present-day Grand Teton. Jackson Hole and “Colt’s Hell” in the National Park are generally considered to be the Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park. In fact, it is more likely to be the area later called the “Smelly Hole”, a similarly geothermally active area of ​​the Shoshone River, east of Yellowstone Park, near what is today Cody, Wyoming.

But Cody’s most famous, some people might say, was unfortunate. It happened in 1808, when he and his trapping partner, a man named John Potts (also a veteran of the Lewis and Clark expedition), were now in the south. Kayaking on the Jefferson River in Montana, south of the fork in the road, they encountered a large group of hostile, fierce and notorious Blackfoot tribes. Blackfeet asked them to go ashore. Colt complied with the execution, disarming and undressing at the same time. But Porter refused and was shot and wounded. Potter fired back and was quickly battered by black-footed bullets, and his body was split.

Blackfeet then held a meeting to decide Colter’s fate, after which Colter was summoned and Crow was told to start running. Thus began the most striking series of events. Stark was naked and realized that he was actually running for his own life, being chased by a group of brave young people, everyone eager to win the honor of taking the scalp after a few miles of extreme speed (note this, you guys) All the marathon runners!) Colt, completely exhausted and bleeding from his nose, turned his head to see except for a lonely brave man who had retreated far in the race. The rest will be that the attacker quickly overcomes Colt. What happened next is described in the immortal words of John Bradbury in 1817, a Scottish botanist who traveled extensively in the western United States in the early 19th century:

“He turned his head again and saw the barbarian less than twenty yards from him. He made up his mind to avoid the expected blow as much as possible, stopped suddenly, turned around, and opened his arms. The Indian was surprised by the sudden movement. , Perhaps because of the bloody appearance of Colt, also tried to stop; but running exhausted, he fell, and at the same time tried (sic) to throw away the spear stuck on the ground and broke it in his hand. Ke Ert immediately grabbed the pointed part, he used it to nail him to the ground, and then continued his flight.”

Colt also grabbed the blanket of the unfortunate aspiring hero and continued to fly towards the ultimate escape and freedom until he reached the Madison River, so he jumped in with incredible composure and saw nearby A pile of fallen trees was caught by the shore in the distance, grabbing a reed growing beside it, and then sneaking in and hiding under the raft, using the hollow reed as a straw, he could breathe through it, because when As they rushed back and forth on the raft looking for the rest of him, he felt the vibration of the Blackfoot Warrior that day (note this, all you snorkelers!).

When night fell, the Blackfoot thought he had escaped and withdrew to their camp at the beginning of the incredible walking game miles away. Colt carefully came out of his hiding place, alive but cold and painful. He began a long journey through the mountains and plains in the middle to return to the Missouri River and St. Louis. Soon after retreating to St. Louis, the young (but already quite old!) Mr. Coulter found himself fascinated by a lovely young girl, and soon he was bound by the bondage of marital happiness, just like his own. The trap fell unsuspectingly into a beaver from his previous life. In just a few years after he used the surplus from selling fur to buy the engagement and new lives of farmers on nearby land, John Colter entered eternity. It can never be determined whether John’s premature death was caused by his shock from the legendary wandering through the unknown and unknown land to the sudden transition of family life, or the extreme hardship of that hard life finally caught up with him and forced His ultimate price was his unexpectedly premature death.

In fact, the North American fur trade was founded by New World French Canadian settlers in the early 17th century (1608). They were originally contract servants who served their patrons for a fixed period of time in exchange for them from Europe. To the coast of North America. In fact, they are slaves to their masters until their promises are met, and their masters are shrewd merchants. (At that time, there were actually a few equally savvy businesswomen in French Canada. They were also familiar with the wealth gained by taking advantage of Europe’s massive demand for high-quality furs known for its production in the interior. Their contracted “servants” were slaves. Labor).

These incredibly strong and strong men (many of the more legendary men today will be labeled “super men”) take on heavy work and long and hard days, and they broke up for the first time in the spring. Time to transport trade goods from Montreal to the Rockies as far away as Canada’s northern Rockies (think Edmonton and Jasper) in a canoe, and then return with hundreds of packs of 90-pound fur in late summer, arriving before freezing Montreal. The vast lake route in the waters of Quetico in southern Ontario and northern Minnesota required a lot of arduous transport. During the transport, everyone was usually short in stature and carried two 90-pound backpacks on their backs. In that era The literature records some examples of people carrying three such backpacks. The traditional story mentions that there is at least one 6’8″ giant who is said to have carried seven such backpacks.

In practice, few of these sailors complete the entire journey from Montreal to their cargo destination, and few spend the winter there. Soon after, this custom spread to some people who chose to bravely face the harsh winter of the middle country. (The temperature at the Lake Woods weather station in Minnesota occasionally drops to -60 degrees, which is equivalent to the deep freeze at the bottom of the Cheena River Basin in Fairbanks, Alaska today, where the average temperature has been in the past few decades). The standard approach is to divide the journey into two halves. The sailors from the west and east meet at the annual meeting point at the Grand Portage on the shore of a small bay on the north side of Lake Superior in the far corner, exchanging hundreds of tons of cargo. Northeast Minnesota. Those who choose to withstand the harshness of the Canadian inland winter are called hommes du nord (northern) or hibernator (winter). They often marry local wives, have children, and support their families with them. In the process, a historically disadvantaged and unrecognized class of citizens, called Metì, tends to gather on the banks of the Red River in Manitoba. In his own small settlement. They are ultimately destined to play an important role in expanding the western fur trade south to the Louisiana Territory of the United States.

Eastern crew members are called mangeurs de lard (pork eaters) because their diet mainly consists of bacon, which is produced in Montreal and provided to them by their owners. Western crews often rely mainly on meatballs. Fresh game and dried meat originally came from Montreal, but as the trade matured, they began to be manufactured in Grand Portage and distributed to Western crews. The purpose of this rendezvous was twofold-to provide a place for the formal exchange of goods and a chance for a few days of noisy and debauchery, and then restart the trek of the canoe fleet, which was powered by the awake navigator again.

In 1670, the King of France granted Hudson’s Bay Company an exclusive royal charter for the North American fur trade. In the next two decades, the policy changed and restrictions were relaxed, which resulted in the formation of a new major competitor, Northwest Corporation. The two companies launched a vicious and fierce competition for manpower, resources, and local alliances to lock the source of their fur, because unlike later American mountain people, voyagers rarely engage in hunting and trapping activities, preferring to leave. Give this task to the indigenous people they meet and exchange furs with the locals. The emergence of the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1770 imposed organization and structure on the industry, which before this time was mainly composed of a relatively informal and loose alliance of individual masters and their contracted servants. With the advent of the fierce competition heralded by the rise of Northwest Corporation, all appearances of independent fur business were extinguished. The two companies fought fiercely until after two decades of fighting and stealing each other’s resources, the number of casualties changed. To be so large, they were finally forced to merge in 1821.

This merger also marks the end of Voyageur as a universal water adventurer. In fact, these people actually formed a special level of adventurer. Voyageurs occupies the highest level, especially the employees of the HBC/NWC joint enterprise, who have the valuable skills and physical abilities of traditional Voyageurs. Therefore, they rarely deviate from their ships and routes. The original, independent (after fulfilling any previous contractual obligations) sailors are called coureur des bois, and they usually travel freely in New France without hindrance. With the vigorous development of HBC/NWC business, their number has decreased. Finally, there are engagements, generally ordinary laborers accustomed to outdoor life, skilled in border handicrafts, and they are willing to do whatever is required of them for anyone who needs their services.

The birth and subsequent development of the fur trade in the western United States embarked on a completely different path. In the spring of 1808, with the consent of the then US President Thomas Jefferson, and even before the triumphant return, with the consent of the then US President Thomas Jefferson, its new beginnings could be found, of course when considering the formal organization and structure. St. Louis of the pioneering Lewis and Clark expedition. In the same spring of 1808, a businessman named Manual Lisa facilitated the fate encounter between John Coulter and his two subordinates, Forest Hancock and Joseph Dixon. On the way to establish the first trading post west of the United States. The Mississippi River is located at the mouth of the fabled Yellowstone River, where it flows into Missouri, near what is now Williston, North Dakota.

In 1810, Astor went to Fort Astoria (Fort Astoria) for a land expedition. In 1811, he and a group of…



Source by Peter G Brabeck

A brief history of North American fur trade

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