DCHP-1 Online

mangeur de lard Cdn French, Fur Trade, Hist.

• 1 in early use, an engage of the North West Company who signed on to man the canoes plying between Montreal and the Grand Portage, so called because pork was the staple of their diet, as opposed to the pemmican and coarser foods endured by winterers and others who ventured into the interior. Also mangeur du lard.

  See also: North West Company  porkeater (def. 1a)  engage  

  • 1794  (1929)  A strong contrary wind obliged us to put ashore on an Island in Lac de la Pluie, where the Mangeurs de Lard from the Fort passed us under Sail.
  • 1884  They looked contemptuously on the voyageurs from Montreal to Grand Portage, whom they called "mangeurs de lard," pork eaters from the dried provisions used in the absence of game coming up the lakes.
  • 1961  There was a day, no doubt, when Oiseau Rock echoed the voices of the "Mangeurs du Lard" as they sang their favorite songs. . . .

• 2 an inexperienced voyageur.

  See also: porkeater (def. 1b)  

  • 1836  In our case, however, there was an unavoidable mixture of old hands and "mangeurs de lard," or green-horns; and there was scarcely one who had failed to take advantage of the last opportunity of getting drunk.
  • 1843  (1932)  [He was] the ablest mangeur de lard we have had in the country for a number of years.
  • 1955  It was as significant as crossing the Equator; henceforth he and Henry might call themselves voyageurs; no longer were they still novices in northern travel, mere mangeurs de lard.

• 3 Northwest the men employed in operating rafts and barges, as distinct from the trappers and canoemen, who considered themselves much higher in station.

  • c1902  (1912)  That threw an army of some two thousand men--voyageurs, coureurs des bois, mangeurs de lard, famous hunters, traders, and trappers--on their own resources.
  • c1902  (1912)  For the mangeurs de lard, as they called the fur company raftsmen, they had a supreme contempt.