DCHP-1 Online
brigade 
1 n. Fur Trade, Hist. a fleet of canoes, bateaux, or York boats carrying trade goods, supplies, and furs to and from the inland posts of the fur companies.
See also: boat brigade canoe brigade fur brigade scow brigade
- 1761 (1901) To each canoe there are eight men; and to every three or four canoes, which constitute a brigade, there is a guide or conductor.
- 1815 They usually get out in brigades like the bateaux, and in the course of the summer upwards of fifty of these vessels are thus dispatched.
- 1941 A canoe brigade still connects Senneterre post on the C.N.R. . . .
- 1963 Each June, in brigades of 34-foot [York] boats, Lower Fort Garry despatched its trade goods and its men.
2 n. Fur Trade, Hist. a train of Red River carts, pack horses, dog sleds, etc. employed by the fur companies in transporting trade goods, supplies, and furs overland.
See also: fur brigade
- 1863 The Hudson Bay Company's monster brigade of carts from Fort Abercrombie arrived here safely last week.
- 1929 After the last of these trains had departed, a brigade of sixty horse-sleds and thirty dog-trains was sent to the Beaver Hills to haul in three hundred buffalo cows previously killed and staged out of the reach of predatory animals.
- 1958 The term "Brigade" . . . applied to . . . pack horses travelling over the rolling hills of the Interior [of B.C.]. . . .
- 1967 As a brigade included several hundred horses, the post was a scene of great activity during arrivals and departures
3 n. Obs. a train of wagons; a fleet of bateaux employed in freighting merchandise.
- 1812 We understand that a strong brigade consisting of about 2,000 hogs, arrived on Thursday . . . to be slaughtered.
- 1822 [1821] The supposed Indians were no other than the crew of a brigade of batteaux. . .
4 n. a number of canoes on a canoe trip, especially when following the historic routes of the early explorers and voyageurs.
- 1958 Simon Fraser . . . lacked some of the hazards the Fraser brigade faces in its reenactment of that trip. The brigade, 10 men in three canoes headed by veteran riverman Dick Corless of Prince George, now is camped near Lillooet, B.C. . . .
5 n. a cat-train, especially one taking supplies to and furs from northern posts of the Hudson's Bay Co.
- 1761 (1901) To each canoe there are eight men; and to every three or four canoes, which constitute a brigade, there is a guide or conductor.