DCHP-1 Online

freighter † 

• 1 n. a person engaged in the transporting of goods, especially in the North and, formerly, in the West.

  • 1859  (1964)  Many of them . . . will not go as far as York, it's the Lower River that is the stumbling block for procuring freighters.
  • 1860  The system on which the freighters deal with their trip men is, I believe, injurious both to the employed and the employer.
  • 1908  Here . . . they sold the horses, and with the proceeds hired local freighters to carry them and their supplies to Peace River Crossing. . . .
  • 1963  [Headline] Life In The North Was Good For Freighter And His Team.

• 2 Nfld a passenger or crew member on a coastal vessel.

  • 1905  The schooners take many passengers north in the spring. Such are called "freighters" on the coast; they are put ashore at such harbours as they elect, and, for passage for themselves, families, and gear, pay upon the return voyage twenty-five cents for every hundredweight of fish caught.
  • 1964  Cruiser. John Eagan, 8 November, 1819. Member of the crew of a vessel engaged in local coastal transportation. . . . Other more modern synonyms are freighter, coaster, trader (but the last as a thorough misuse, as a trading vessel was a floating shop).

• 3 a large dog-sled used in the North for transporting supplies.

  • 1910  Also he saw the heavy freighters pulling down the main street and heading up the frozen Klondike. . . .

• 4 †  a heavy wagon for carrying goods.

  • 1918  ". . . I wuz a'sittin' up there on the freighter a'toting boxes and bales up over thet there mountain, my old black snake whip a'snappin' an' a'crackin'. . . ."

• 5 a large canoe (from 20 to 30 feet long), used for transporting goods, especially in the North.

  See also: freight canoe  

  • 1928  Because his big twenty-foot freighter was overloaded and undermanned, he had been permitted to use an outboard motor--for the first time in his life.
  • 1956  Travelling upstream and carrying an eighteen-foot freighter or a two-hundred-pound pack, the portage seems interminable; but the labor is less than poling the canoe up those eight miles of rapids.