DCHP-1 Online

voyageur [< Cdn F] Although the form voyageur is almost always preferred to the English voyager, it is often printed in italics, even when reference is being made to present-day travellers. The word is, however, considered fully a part of Canadian English by most persons who have occasion to use it.

• 1a n. Fur Trade, Hist. 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: Canadian voyager  Canadian voyageur  engagé  porkeater (def. 1c)  voyager (def. 1)  

  • a1820  (1838)  The subject treated of the hardihood of the Voyageurs, the troubles and difficulties they encounter. . . .
  • 1793  (1933)  A full allowance to a voyageur while at this Poste is a Quart of Lyed Indian Corn or maize, and one ounce of Greece.
  • 1908  One by one these old voyageurs are passing away, and with them and their immediate successors the tradition perishes.
  • 1935  Indian voyageurs were always used on the Rupert river canoe transport system and, apart from supervision by the factor in charge of the trading post, there were no white supervisors actually on the route, for native supervisors (head guides they were called) were developed from among the outstanding Indians or their chiefs.
  • 1965  . . . it takes but little imagination to see the colourfully dressed voyageurs packing their heavy "pieces" . . . along the rocky river bank.

• 1b n. any of those journeying into the wilderness of the Northwest, both engaged servants and company officers.

  • 1815  The male inhabitants of this and three or four other seigniories in this part of the district are mostly voyageurs.
  • 1829  My dear friend Mr. Fleming . . . and a party of voyageurs discovered a notch, which led them through from the Great Lakes to Black River, which falls into the Columbia.
  • 1935  The Rev. Mr. Young shows us "soldiers, voyageurs and Indians -- who had abstained from all intoxicants so advantageously to themselves. . . ."
  • 1962  [Caption] Immense Squaw Rapids power project is transforming a voyageur's highway into a fluid "power line."

• 1c n. A man other than a permanent employee, taken on for single trip with a brigade.

  See also: tripman  

  • 1860  The voyageurs are subjected to slavish hardships, and owing to the difficulty of procuring men for the tripping to Hudson's Bay, and the generally disagreeable nature of the whole business, master-freighters are fast giving it up.
  • 1896  The voyageur considers he is travelling well if he makes two fires during the day, at which he drinks tea, and sleeps thirty or thirty-five miles nearer his destination every night.
  • 1914  More than 700 voyageurs, whites and Indians had been hired in different parts of Ontario and Quebec, selected on account of their great skill in handling boats, canoes. . . .
  • 1958  But Heming neglected to consider that the traders traveled light in canoes and with dog-teams piloted by relays of Indians and voyageurs. . . .

• 2 n. Hist. a boatman on the St. Lawrence River and tributary waters.

  • 1824  From their dialect I soon discovered them to be a mixture of Americans (ycleped Yankies), Canadians (voyageurs), Dutch and Irish men.
  • 1832  The Canadian boatman, or voyageur, is naturally polite, and always cheerful. . . .
  • 1863  Sometimes they had open water in lanes and patches; sometimes a field of jagged ice, whereupon the merry-hearted voyageurs jumped out and dragged the canoe across to water again. . . .

• 3 n. Hist. a soldier in the Voyageur Corps

  See also: Voyageur Corps  

  • 1812  On the morning of the 20th instant, a company of Voyageurs consisting of 45 men, including officers, were surprised at St. Regis, and taken prisoners.
  • 1848  (1866)  The north west company raised a corps of Voyageurs, which, however, was disbanded in the ensuing scoring.
  • 1893  It is the account of a gentleman in the Canadian Voyageurs -- the corps that had so distinguished itself in the war against the United States in 1812-15.
  • 1954  [Aeneas Cameron] was in 1812 appointed paymaster of the Corps of Voyageurs raised by the North West Company for service in the War of 1812.

• 4a n. a person who travels the northern wilderness as trapper, canoeman, dog-driver, etc.; an experienced woodsman.

  • a1820  (1838)  . . . many persons . . . having an additional object in locating settlers in distant points along their thread of settlement, for the protection of the voyageurs and encouragement of the trade.
  • 1912  It was Beteric, known as the voyageur. He was hunter, trader, trapper, and guide all in one.
  • 1913  "Thought I was done for in that storm, boys," said the aged voyageur wagging his head
  • 1963  The ten-man party consisted of himself and King, five Scottish and native-born voyageurs, and three artillerymen

• 4b n. any traveller of the rivers and trails of the wilderness, especially by canoe.

  See also: voyager (def. 2)  

  • 1853  There they had commenced their canoe voyage -- in other words became "voyageurs" -- for such is the name given to those who travel by canoes through these wild territories.
  • 1879  The North canoe [is] the ideal craft of the summer voyageur. . . .
  • 1909  The barter consummated, these Northland voyageurs [Eskimos] had their yearly dance and sing-song and orgy of delight.
  • 1966  [Caption] Rough waters briefly force Ontario voyageurs offstroke in the first 80-mile lap of the Canadian Centennial canoe race from Fort St. James, B.C., to Victoria.