History

Part 15

Canoes were needed to transport both people, supplies and merchandise from warehouse to post, from Montreal deep into the wilderness. Native men skilled in canoe building were highly respected by their tribes and Europeans alike. It took years of experience to select and harvest the right materials.

It required great skill to shape cedar wood, spruce gum and birch bark into a canoe. In early April 1805, John Sayer wrote in his journal that Native men and their families were gathering supplies to repair and build canoes. Later in the month, just before the long journey back to Fort William, Sayer reported that the men made the last of the repairs to the canoes. Sunday 21st[April].

A Stormy Cold Day with flying Showers. wind NW. Pierro & Shawcobai hower finishd repairing my last Canoe. 

—John Sayer, 1805 Native men hunted animals for pelts, as well as for meat. Meat was a welcome trade item at the isolated wintering posts since meat was the mainstay of the winter diet. Since traders rarely brought enough other food for everyone at the post, meat was a large percentage of the food that kept them alive through the winter. 

Pierro, the same man who repaired Sayer's canoes, also hunted for Sayer that winter. Sayer also hired several other Native men to bring meat to the company men. Together, these Native men supplied John Sayer's wintering post on the Snake River with over 13,000 pounds of deer, bear, beaver, duck and and goose meat.

Tuesday 2nd [October]. Cloudy Stormy Weather. . . . this forenoon, the Outarde brot me a Small Deer. Gave him 1 Gal. H Wines and engaged him as my Hunter for the Winter he being accounted the best of all the Indians of this Department. Not all fur traders had the same experience. Many recorded instances of near starvation and told stories of men reduced to eating their moccasins to stay alive. 

Whether they built canoes or hunted for meat, Native men were paid for their work with trade goods. Work done and items supplied were as important as furs and treated much the same as pelts when brought to the fur traders.