III.

French Dominance

The French, who ruled Canada from 1608 to 1760, dominated the North American fur trade, partly because they occupied the St. Lawrence River, which gave access to the Great Lakes and the heart of the continent. The Canadian city of Montréal became prosperous as the main depot from which furs were shipped to Europe. Initially, indigenous people brought their furs there to trade, but soon itinerant French-Canadian fur traders called coureurs de bois (“woods rangers”) were paddling birchbark canoes westward in search of larger and cheaper supplies of beaver. Before the end of the 17th century, they had advanced as far as the Great Plains and linked the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River system. Renowned for daring and endurance, the coureurs de bois adopted native customs and skills and married into indigenous families. In time, the trade developed along regular capitalist lines as many of the independent coureurs de bois were reduced to working as hired hands for large fur companies. They continued, however, to blend French and indigenous elements in the way they lived.