DCHP-1 Online

woods-runner wood-runner Fur Trade, Hist.

• 1 n. an unlicensed trader who ranged the forest in search of furs.

  See also: coureur de bois (def. 1)  

  • 1716  (1965)  . . . the French wood-runners . . . are settled in that lake they call the Sea Lake [Lake Winnipeg]. . . .
  • 1743  (1949)  But to his Surprize about ^1/2 a mile from his tent, he Imagin'd he see a parcill of wood Runners, or French Indians, with gun's upon their shoulder's a comming towards him. . . .
  • 1908  Such luck as a French wood-runner deserting from Canada to the Hudson's Bay was promptly recognized by the order: "To Jan Ba'tiste Larlee, £1-5, a periwig to keep him loyal."
  • 1916  Fifty years later, Pierre Radisson and Medard de Groseillers, "the most renowned and far-travelled wood-runners that New France had yet produced," reached the same sea by canoe-ways from the south.
  • 1961  . . . a tough, colorful, sometimes cruel, always superbly skilled breed of men called by the French coureurs de bois, by the English woods runners, by the Russians promyshlenniki, and by the American trappers, free men, and mountain men

• 2 n. a person who frequents and is familiar with the bush, as a trapper, prospector, or trader.

  See also: bushman (def. 2)  

  • 1953  A grim and taciturn man this Wilson was, but the best scout and most experienced woods-runner in all Mackenzie or Keewatin.