Who were the voyageurs and coureurs des bois?
- Priests who founded schools in New France
- Sailors who explored the Arctic
- Skilled and courageous men who travelled by canoe and formed strong alliances with First Nations
- Soldiers who fought in the War of 1812
Answer: Skilled and courageous men who travelled by canoe and formed strong alliances with First Nations
Discover Canada describes the voyageurs and coureurs des bois as skilled and courageous men who travelled by canoe. They formed strong alliances with First Nations. This was in the 100 years when the Hudson’s Bay Company competed with traders based in Montreal.
Learn more: The fur trade and an early economy
- In 1670 King Charles II of England gave the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) exclusive trading rights over all land draining into Hudson Bay.
- For the next 100 years the HBC competed with traders based in Montreal.
- The voyageurs and coureurs des bois were skilled, brave traders who travelled by canoe and formed strong alliances with First Nations.
- Canada’s first companies were formed under the French and British regimes and competed for the fur trade.
- The HBC had French, British and Aboriginal employees and came to dominate the trade in the northwest.
- HBC trading posts that later became cities: Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, Fort Langley (near Vancouver) and Fort Victoria.
- The first financial institutions opened in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
- The Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832.
- For centuries the economy was based mainly on farming and on exporting fur, fish and timber, moved by roads, lakes, rivers and canals.