1. Introduction: Sons of the Farm, the Trade, and the Wilderness; 2. Leaving Home: Family and Livelihood in French Canada and Beyond; 3. Rites of Passage: Voyageur Cosmology; 4. It is the Paddle That Brings Us: Voyageurs Working in Canoes; 5. The Theater of Hegemony: Masters, Clerks, and Servants; 6. Rendezvous: Parties, Tricks, and Friendships; 7. En Derouine: Life at Interior Fur Trade Posts; 8. Tender Ties, Fluid Monogramy, and Trading Sex: Voyageurs and Aboriginal Women; 9. Disengagement: Going Home and Going Free; 10. Conclusion: Carrying the World
Reexamines the French Canadian workers who dominated the fur trade industry and became iconic images of North American lore.
Carolyn Podruchny is an assistant professor of history at York University in Toronto and the secretary-treasurer of the American Society for Ethnohistory. She coedited the volume De-Centering the Renaissance: Canada and Europe in Multidisciplinary Perspective, 1500–1700.
“A rich and lively portrait of voyageur life. . . . Making the
Voyageur World is the most comprehensive, scholarly, and
interesting work on the voyaguers, who constituted one of the most
significant groups of labourers in nineteenth-century Canada and
the North American West.”—Brett Rushforth, Itinerario
“[Podruchny’s] study provides a welcome examination of the society
and cultural dynamics of this well-known but over-romanticized
group of people who have suffered from generations of inaccurate
stereotyping. . . . Her significant efforts have enabled her to
present a vivid sense of the voyageurs’ world, including much that
is intriguing about their values, behaviors, and beliefs.—John T.
McGrath, Journal of American History
“What is particularly impressive about Podruchny’s work is her
skillful interpretation of primary sources. The challenge in
telling any story about the voyageurs is the fact that they were
overwhelmingly illiterate and therefore left almost no written
records of their own. Podruchny garners a great deal of information
about the voyageurs from an examination of sources left by
travelers, explorers, and particularly the bourgeois. . . .
Podruchny’s use of a large number of sources allows her to
illuminate for the reader the rich cultural and social lives of
voyageurs.”—Brian Schefke, Pacific Northwest Quarterly
“[Podruchny] has written an informative, engaging portrait of the
voyageur world that will become the standard treatment for the
present age. Podruchny’s thematic approach allows her to illuminate
broad patterns and make connections between themes that would be
obscured in a more historical treatment.”—Gerhard J. Ens, Western
Historical Quarterly
“Podruchny’s citations and bibliography display her exhaustive
research, particularly in the papers of the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the companies that operated from Montreal, such as the North
West Company. Podruchny also demonstrates a superlative
understanding of the secondary literature as well the various works
on social theory that she deftly employs in her examination of the
voyageur world. Yet she does so without resorting to the opaque
jargon that often obfuscates rather than illuminates much of
contemporary historical writing. Indeed, Podruchny clearly has
produced a seminal work.”—Annals of Iowa
“Organized, clear, thorough, and readable. . . . Perhaps the
greatest strength of Podruchny’s book is the admirable depth of her
research and the multifaceted nature of both her sources and her
methodological and theoretical approach. . . . Podruchny excels in
her analysis of the values, rituals and relationships of her
voyageur subjects, linking their geographic liminality with the
far-reaching changes to their cultural, social, and religious
identity prompted by their unique form of employment. She adroitly
exposes the many ironies of voyageur identity.”—Emma Anderson,
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
“Podruchny’s work is a valuable contribution for the clarity it
brings to the daily experiences of the fur traders and the rhythms
of their lives. . . . This work will be valuable to those who study
French or British Canada and for those who have an interest in
labor relations in a frontier environment. Scholars engaged in
early Canadian history will be familiar with the broad contours of
her interpretation, but will benefit from the details about the
daily life and work of the voyageurs.”—H-Net Book Reviews
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