coureurs des bois
Colonial wilderness merchants
Coureurs des bois (French, "runners of the woods") were independent French-Canadian fur traders who traveled deep into North American wilderness during the 17th and 18th centuries, living among Indigenous peoples and trading outside official colonial channels.
The term now evokes rugged frontier independence and cultural boundary-crossing: He fancied himself a modern coureur des bois, disappearing into the backcountry for months.
- fur tradeCommercial exchange of animal skins
- trappersThose who snare wildlife
- beaver peltsProcessed rodent hides
- canoesNarrow paddled watercraft
- wildernessUncultivated, uninhabited natural region
New France · portage · birchbark · paddling · trading posts · Indigenous · Métis · backwoods · frontier · rivers · expedition · bushcraft · moccasins · buckskin · French Canadian · forests · hunting · survival
- Canadian HistoryConfederation, Rupert's Land, colonial era, colonial government, self-government
- Canadian ExplorationNorthwest Passage, Hudson Bay, Jacques Cartier, John Cabot, Henry Hudson
- Canadian genealogyancestors, ancestry, descendants, family history, family tree
- Canadian Westpemmican, Hudson's Bay Company, voyageurs, buffalo hunting, bison hunting
- French ColonistsAcadians, Cajuns, habitants, voyageurs, French Canadians
- fur tradebeaver pelts, pelts, furs, mink, sable
coureurs des boisvoyageurs
Historic fur-trade boatmen
company men · patentees · bourgeois · factors
coureurs des boishabitants
Colonial French Canadian settlers
settlers · colonists · townspeople · farmers
coureurs des boiscolonial administrators
Officials managing colonized territories
courier, course, courses, coursed, coursing, courser, concourse, discourse, recourse