History of Voyageurs National Park in Northern Minnesota

Who Were the Voyageurs?
Voyageurs National Park is perhaps best-known for the people who regularly passed through it from the 1690s until the 1850s, traveling and portaging via birchbark canoe from the Great Lakes to the interior of the western United States and Canada. The interconnected waterways, know as the Voyageur Highway, were one of the most important aspects of the fur trade route, and the voyageurs were its backbone.
"Voyageur” is the French word for traveler and refers to the people who were contracted by fur-trading businesses like the North West Company as canoe paddlers, bundle carriers and general laborers. The voyageurs were distinguished from "freemen,” or those who trapped and traded furs on their own account without being bound by a contract. Although most of the voyageurs were French-Canadian, some were English, German and Iroquois.

A Day in the Life
The voyageur's daily routine was back-breaking. Beginning at 3 am, he worked 14-hour days, paddled 50 strokes a minute and regularly carried two 90-pound bundles across portages. This grueling work was fueled by two meals, breakfast and dinner, which included dried peas, salt pork, corn, wild rice, or pemmican (strips of dried buffalo meat). The rhythmic paddling, often accompanied by singing, was broken only for a few minutes every hour in order to smoke a pipe. This became such an important milestone, that distances were often measured in pipes. It’s estimated that three pipes equaled about 12 miles of paddling. Once night fell, the voyageurs stopped for dinners and then slept with their heads under the overturned canoes.
There were four positions, or jobs in the voyageur canoe:

• the “avant” or bowman was located in the front (or bow) of the canoe and acted as the guide.
• the “gouvernail” or steersman would sit or stand at the stern (rear) and steer the canoe by order of the bowman.
• the “milieu” or middleman were the voyageurs in the middle of the canoe and usually the least experienced of the group.

the express was the highest honor of a voyageur and consisted of paddling a canoe carrying important people or messages at twice the usual speed of about 45 paddles a minute.

Like a Voyageur
Today, park visitors can catch glimpses of the voyageur life while on Rainy Lake: the color of the sky contrasting with the green of endless Boreal forest, the sound of paddles in water, the smell of food cooking over a fire. And no canoe trip is complete without the voyageurs’ songs.
Washington Irving wrote about the voyageurs in 1836: "…the steersman often sings an old traditional French song, with some regular burden in which they all join, keeping time with their oars; if at any time they flag in spirits or relax in exertion; it is but necessary to strike up a song of the kind to put them all in fresh spirits and activity.”
En roulant ma boule was a well-known voyageur song originating in fifteenth century France. With more than 100 known versions, the song would be made up as singers went along in a call/response manner.
 
Behind our house we have a pond,
En roulant ma boule
Behind our house we have a pond,
En roulant ma boule
Where three fine ducks swim round and round,
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
Where three fine ducks swim round and round,
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,

En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule
En roulant ma boule roulant,
En roulant ma boule

Where three fine ducks swim round and round,
En roulant ma boule
Where three fine ducks swim round and round,
En roulant ma boule
To hunt them comes the young king's son
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant,
To hunt them comes the young king's son
Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant.

What's your favorite way to experience the magic of Voyageurs National Park? Let us know in the comments below!