DCHP-1 Online

Canadian voyager Obs.

• one of the canoemen or boatmen, usually a French Canadian, Orkneyman, Indian, or Métis, who crewed the vessels of the inland fur trade.

  See also: voyageur (def. 1)  

  • The Anglicized form was in common use among English traders of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

  • 1793  (1801)  I was also compelled to put the people up in short allowance, and confine them to two meals a day, a regulation peculiarly offensive to a Canadian voyager.
  • 1820  (1823)  It was not very uncommon, amongst the Canadian voyagers for one woman to be common to, and maintained at the joint expense of, two men; nor for a voyager to sell his wife, either for a season, or altogether, for a sum of money, proportioned to her beauty and good qualities, but always inferior to the price of a team of dogs.
  • 1826  Here we embarked in two canoes, manned by 24 Canadian voyagers.