Read Online Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Stark
Ads: Link
depart Mackinac Island before he paid off his debts. And still another, the voyageur Joseph Perrault, asked Mr. Hunt to pony up the $11.25 fine levied against him for a recent barroom brawl on Mackinac, plus another $8.50 to pay for the repair of the table he’d smashed.
Hunt paid. These voyageurs signed. But Hunt and Mackenzie still needed more.
For all his inexperience in the wilderness, Wilson Price Hunt had a knack for reading people’s character. He and Mackenzie now struck on another lure. In addition to their free-spending habits and free-living lifestyle when off duty, voyageurs had a well-deserved reputation, especially when ashore, for favoring flamboyant clothing. To this, Hunt and Mackenzie made their appeal.
The well-dressed voyageur boasted a look that was something between a soft-footed Indian hunter below the waist and a swashbuckling French pirate above it. This unusual sartorial configuration reflected the voyageurs’ origins in the melding of seventeenth-century French immigrants in eastern North America with the native Indian peoples already living there who were familiar with travel through its lakes, rivers, and forests, and the dress and equipment best suited to it. The voyageurs wore soft Indian moccasins on their feet and deerskin leggings up over their knees that were held up by a garter-like string tied to a belt around the waist. In warm seasons they typically wore a breechcloth, in the Indian style, leaving thighs bare. This waist-down garb gave them exceptional maneuverability for sitting or squatting for hours in a cramped, luggage-crammed canoe, climbing in and out over the high gunwales, and hauling two ninety-pound packets of pelts at a time during a portage. The footwear and leggings also offered a certain resistance to wading in cold water or snow, essential in these northern climes.
Above the waist, the voyageurs wore a loose-fitting and colorful plaid shirt, perhaps a blue or red, and over it, depending on the weather, a long, hooded, capelike coat called a capote . In cold winds they cinched this closed with a waist sash—the gaudier the better, often red. From the striking sash dangled a beaded pouch that contained their fire-making materials and tobacco for their “inevitable pipe.” Topping off this rainbow-hued, multicultural ensemble, the well-dressed voyageur sported either a colorful headscarf or a red wool hat, on which the French-Canadian voyageurs loved to display badges of their status.
“Je suis un homme du nord!”
The true “Man of the North” wore a brightly colored feather in his cap to distinguish himself from the rabble, fixing it in place before landing at a fur post. As it happened, Hunt and Mackenzie possessed an abundant supply of large, colorful feathers, including flouncy ostrich plumes, among the trade goods they’d purchased at Montreal. Desperate for recruits at Mackinac, they struck on the clever idea of offering an ostentatious feather to every voyageur who signed on. Soon the short, arcing beach at Mackinac Island fluttered with the feathers of newly recruited French-Canadian voyageurs who had joined John Jacob Astor’s great Pacific Coast enterprise.
But ostrich feathers, to Hunt’s dismay, worked no magic with the hard-drinking, no-frills American woodsmen. He and Mackenzie still needed more recruits for the West Coast empire. Leaving Mackinac Island in mid-August, the Overland Party paddled southwest toward their next destination, St. Louis. En route, they had to cross a geographic barrier that is almost unrecognized today but that determined the route of much pre-industrial travel (and even cultural patterns) in North America. This subtle rise of land known to geographers as the Mid-Continental Divide separates the watershed of the Great Lakes, running east to the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence, from the watershed of the Ohio-Mississippi-Missouri river system, which drains the center of the continent south into the Gulf of Mexico. In the
Hunt paid. These voyageurs signed. But Hunt and Mackenzie still needed more.
For all his inexperience in the wilderness, Wilson Price Hunt had a knack for reading people’s character. He and Mackenzie now struck on another lure. In addition to their free-spending habits and free-living lifestyle when off duty, voyageurs had a well-deserved reputation, especially when ashore, for favoring flamboyant clothing. To this, Hunt and Mackenzie made their appeal.
The well-dressed voyageur boasted a look that was something between a soft-footed Indian hunter below the waist and a swashbuckling French pirate above it. This unusual sartorial configuration reflected the voyageurs’ origins in the melding of seventeenth-century French immigrants in eastern North America with the native Indian peoples already living there who were familiar with travel through its lakes, rivers, and forests, and the dress and equipment best suited to it. The voyageurs wore soft Indian moccasins on their feet and deerskin leggings up over their knees that were held up by a garter-like string tied to a belt around the waist. In warm seasons they typically wore a breechcloth, in the Indian style, leaving thighs bare. This waist-down garb gave them exceptional maneuverability for sitting or squatting for hours in a cramped, luggage-crammed canoe, climbing in and out over the high gunwales, and hauling two ninety-pound packets of pelts at a time during a portage. The footwear and leggings also offered a certain resistance to wading in cold water or snow, essential in these northern climes.
Above the waist, the voyageurs wore a loose-fitting and colorful plaid shirt, perhaps a blue or red, and over it, depending on the weather, a long, hooded, capelike coat called a capote . In cold winds they cinched this closed with a waist sash—the gaudier the better, often red. From the striking sash dangled a beaded pouch that contained their fire-making materials and tobacco for their “inevitable pipe.” Topping off this rainbow-hued, multicultural ensemble, the well-dressed voyageur sported either a colorful headscarf or a red wool hat, on which the French-Canadian voyageurs loved to display badges of their status.
“Je suis un homme du nord!”
The true “Man of the North” wore a brightly colored feather in his cap to distinguish himself from the rabble, fixing it in place before landing at a fur post. As it happened, Hunt and Mackenzie possessed an abundant supply of large, colorful feathers, including flouncy ostrich plumes, among the trade goods they’d purchased at Montreal. Desperate for recruits at Mackinac, they struck on the clever idea of offering an ostentatious feather to every voyageur who signed on. Soon the short, arcing beach at Mackinac Island fluttered with the feathers of newly recruited French-Canadian voyageurs who had joined John Jacob Astor’s great Pacific Coast enterprise.
But ostrich feathers, to Hunt’s dismay, worked no magic with the hard-drinking, no-frills American woodsmen. He and Mackenzie still needed more recruits for the West Coast empire. Leaving Mackinac Island in mid-August, the Overland Party paddled southwest toward their next destination, St. Louis. En route, they had to cross a geographic barrier that is almost unrecognized today but that determined the route of much pre-industrial travel (and even cultural patterns) in North America. This subtle rise of land known to geographers as the Mid-Continental Divide separates the watershed of the Great Lakes, running east to the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence, from the watershed of the Ohio-Mississippi-Missouri river system, which drains the center of the continent south into the Gulf of Mexico. In the
Similar Books
