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Updated: July 12, 2025
Down the lakes from Michilimackinac came a force of coureurs-de-bois, among them seasoned veterans of the wilderness like Du Lhut, Tonty, La Forêt, Morel de la Durantaye, and Nicholas Perrot, each worth a whole squad of soldiers when it came to fighting the Iroquois in their own forests.
And she made the boys kiss Jenieve; and while they were saddened by clothes, she also made them say they were sorry about the shoes. By sunset, the schooner, which had sat in the straits all day, hoisted its sails and rounded the hooked point of the opposite island. The gun at the fort was like a parting salute, and a shout was raised by coureurs-de-bois thronging the log wharf.
Then the goods which had been bought by the merchants of Montreal and Three Rivers were loaded upon small barques and brought to these towns to be in readiness for the annual fairs when the coureurs-de-bois and their Indians came down to trade in the late summer.
When all the furs had been sold, the coureurs-de-bois took some goods along with them to be used partly in trade on their own account at the western posts and partly as presents from the King to the western chieftains. There is reason to suspect, however, that much of what the royal bounty provided for this latter purpose was diverted to private use.
It was not the policy of the French authorities, nor was it the plan of the coureurs-de-bois, that any considerable amount of trading should take place at these western stockades. They were only the outposts intended to keep the trade running in its proper channels. In a word, it was the aim of the French to bring the trade to the colony, not to send the colony overland to the savages.
There, too, might be seen little knots of the men of the woods, coureurs-de-bois or voyageurs, with leathern hunting tunics, fringed leggings, and fur cap with eagle feather, who came back once a year to the cities, leaving their Indian wives and children in some up-country wigwam.
From a blue and cloudless sky the rising sun shone on the scattered shipping, on the green hills and islands, on the rugged and historical heights of the town. Many others besides myself were on the quay, doubtless drawn hither for the same purpose priests, soldiers, soberly-clad citizens, several coureurs-de-bois, and a redskin or two.
I ask you if such a war is an easy task for a handful of soldiers, with a few censitaires straight from the plough, and a troop of coureurs-de-bois whose hearts are all the time are with their traps and their beaver-skins." "No, no; I am sorry if I spoke too hastily," said Louis. "We shall look into the matter at our council." "Then it warms my heart to hear you say so," cried the old governor.
That is the way Father Carheil phrased it, and he was quite right. Every spring, accordingly, if the great trade routes to Montreal were reasonably free from the danger of an overwhelming Iroquois attack, the coureurs-de-bois rounded up the western Indians with their stocks of furs from the winter's hunt.
"There is not a family of any account," he wrote to the King, "but has sons, brothers, uncles, and nephews among these coureurs-de-bois." This may be an exaggeration, but from references contained in the dispatches of various royal officials one may fairly conclude that Duchesneau's estimate of the number of traders was not far wide of the mark.
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