Talk:Coureur des bois

message: At the time the new licensing system starting in 1681, we see the emergence of the terms voyageurs and engagés for legal participants in the fur trade.  From this point on, anyone operating without a contract or congé (and therefore illegally) would be referred to as coureurs de bois (prior to this, all people going into the Pays d'en haut without govenrmental permission were illegal).  Voyageurs were wage laborers contracted by licensed merchants.  Most often they, through the terms of their contract, would profit from the actual trade of the goods; and many times these voyageurs were themselves traders or invested money into the voyage and trade.  Engagés generally did not have vested interest in the canoe or the goods but were simply contracted laborers.  It is interesting to note that the term engagé was also used in New France to describe an indentured servant, of whom Governor Frontenac describes as, “a man obliged to go wherever and do whatever his master commanded like a slave during the time of his indentureship” (quoted in Dechêne, Habitants and Merchants p. 27).  Engagés most often were contracted to make a trip into the pays d’en haut. and back with goods or supplies, leaving in the spring and returning by the end of the summer.  Voyageurs often spent extended periods in the pays d’en haut whereas the engagés were basically seasonal workers.  
	Engagé numbers increase throughout the 18th century and by the period of British controlled trade in the later 18th century, most all workers are engagés but become simply referred to as voyageurs.  (Greer, Peasant Lord and Merchant p. 179)  It as during this later British controlled period that the distinction between winterers (hivernauts) and pork-eaters (mangeurs du lard) or “Montreal-men” becomes common (Greer p. 182).  Also, to note, the licensing that made a coureur de bois illegal during the French regime no longer existed. So there were no coureurs de bois during this later period.
	Now comes the confusing part.  Many of the people that worked illegally one year very well could be legal and licensed the next.  Like-wise, amnesty was granted many times to the coureurs de bois when they were needed by the government for their various skills as well as for their numbers. This can be seen as these pardons correlate with major military expeditions (the Fox Wars, The War of Spanish Succession, War of Austrian Succession, and etc.). Often not only was amnesty given to those that surrendered themselves and participated but also trading license were given to them for doing so.  In addition to all of this, sometimes the authorities, when complaining about those involved in the fur trade (legal and illegal), referred to everyone involved simply as coureurs de bois. 
Isac: 64.33.161.42 18:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My name is Isaac Walters and this is part of an article that I am writing on Coureur de Bois in New France, I hope that this helps explain the differences between the terms voyageur, coureur de bois, etc.  IsaacIWfromWI 19:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Will your article be a new WP one replacing this one? You could rewrite this article or change it to incorporate the above information since you seem to have a very good understanding. I would also make sure that references and citations are included. BC 23:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  One must, as a minimum, take into account the current meaning / definition  of the word "Voyageur". Per that meaning / definition, Coureur des bois are Voyageurs.  North8000 (talk) 11:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voyageurs and Coureurs de Bois 

message: A separate article on North American Fur Trade has now been started.  Kablammo (talk) 15:35, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[North American Fur Trade]] 

message: CanOD spells it coureur de bois, pl. coureurs de bois, not with a des, and doesn't italicize it.  Any reason not to move the article and remove italics? —Michael Z. 2009-01-26 20:12 z
:Grammatically, it should be coureur des bois, since les bois means forest, whereas le bois means wood, as in the material.--137.138.4.19 (talk) 09:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Back in the 1960s in Ontario, I learned it as courrier des bois. I was totally surprised to see this other spelling. Davidrust (talk) 05:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Bois usually refers to wood or woods; "forêt" is the usual translation of forest. Since woods is plural, I agree, "des bois" (of the woods) would be more accurate. I don't think there is any right or wrong whether you use de, des, or even du. I've seen all these expressions used in various publications. Most of my references refer to "de" bois, however. For this term, I wouldn't say that grammar enters into the picture. Spelling in the article, however, should be consistent.  BC  talk to me 07:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling and italics 

message: I am new to editing on Wikipedia, so I thought I would put this here so I don't mess up the article. If some one could add to the article when they see this it would be appreciated. The citation for the number of strokes per minute comes from a book by Grace Lee Nute, called "The Voyageur" (New York: D.Appleton, 1931), p 55. The original quote: "They answered they were fresh yet [at 7:00pm]. They had been almost constantly paddling since 3 o'clock this morning...57,600 strokes with the paddle, and 'fresh yet!' No human beings, except the Candien [sic] French, could stand this. Encamped... at half past nine o'clock, having come today seventy-nine miles." This would mean 57,600 strokes/16 hours/60 minutes = 60 strokes per minute. I did my graduate work on French Colonial Illinois and the Coureur de(s) Bois under Carl Ekberg, one of the leading experts on French Illinois. Mcardinal (talk) 19:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done, thanks.--BCtalk to me 22:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation Assistance

message: Voyageur should be an article rather than a section within this one.   North8000 (talk) 00:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. They should be two separate articles.  BC  talk to me 02:51, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Yes, that would be nice. More than I can make happen though. Pfly (talk) 11:23, 27 December 2010 
Fleshing out my original comment, "Voyageur" is an extensively used term, and has a different meaning than Coureur des bois. North8000 (talk) 15:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

text: I started the article "Voyageurs"  (from what was previously a redirect page) by copying the Voyageur section from the Coureur Des Bois article.   Voyageur is an extensively used term, with a different meaning than Coureur Des Bois.  It was discussed there that it should be a separate article.  I used the plural form for the title because the singular is the title of a disambig page. Eventually the Voyageur material should get reduced in or removed from the Coureur Des Bois article, but I'm not going there now.  The same for renaming the new article to "Voyageurs (fur trade)" as had been suggested in the disambig talk page in 2007.      North8000 (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I plan to reduce and modify the Voyageur seciton here to start reflecting the new separation of the articles. North8000 (talk) 11:10, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That reduction is going to take longer than I thought.  I will need  to get a better understanding of Coureur des bois in order to properly reduce the voyageur section.  North8000 (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Voyageur should be an article 

message: The article says that Courer des bois were fur traders.  Then is lists 8 famous Cour des bois, 7 of which have Wikipedia articles.  I did a quick read of the 7 articles.  All of the articles are about them being explorers, "back country" folks,  and diplomats.  In 6 articles I found no mention of them being involved in the fur trade, and in the 7th a few word mention of it.  I'm not going anywhere with this, other than to say it's a bit confusing. North8000 (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Famous Courer des bois not fur traders?

message: I've been reading up.  It looks like Courer des bois can have other general meanings related to woodsman and entepreneur, but that the mainly used meanings relate to the fur trade.  During the height of the North American  fur trade era when there were Voyageurs, the Voyageurs are a part of the licensed and larger scale organized efforts effort, and the Courer des bois were engaged in the unlicensed individualistic efforts. And "unlicensed" was major in the meaning of the term.    Prior to the Voyageur era, where the practice was the Indians brought  the furs to the major trading points in settled areas, Courer des bois were the ones who circumvented the system by going deeper into the wilderness and trading there. So in both fur trade eras, the term had a meaning as those working outside of the official system. 
Incidentally, the Voyagers were not licensed, their bosses were. Also, the idea that the Courer des bois era sort of ended when the Voyageur era started is not correct. Courer des bois remained a significant  (albeit minority) player in the fur trade throughout the Voyageur era. North8000 (talk) 13:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: More on the Distinction between Courer des bois and Voyageur

message: So, 2/3 of the current Courer des bois is about Voyaguers rather than Courer des bois.  I started the new Voyageurs article by copying the Voyaguers material from here, and subsequently have significantly evolved it, although it has a LONG way to go.  This leaves us with a double awkward situation regarding the Voyageurs material in this article.   My idea is to delete the Voyageurs material from here.   This will temporarily leave this article as a rather awkward stub, but I think that such will push for development of a more thorough Courer des bois article, which I would be happy to help with.  Do you have any thoughts on this idea? (support or object) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'm going to start doing that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is done.  I morphed/expanded a "Relation to Voyageurs" section and also kept 2 of the 3 voyageur pictures. North8000 (talk) 15:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: I started new Voyageurs article / OK to remove Voyageurs from this? 

message: Should it be Coureur de bois rather than  Coureur des bois?     Quick check of refs indicated "de".    We'd want to make sure the "des" is absolutely wrong, (i.e. that "de" is at least overwhelmingly used, if not the only way) before making a change. North8000 (talk) 12:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comments above in the "Spelling and Italics" section. I think it boils down to just being consistent.  BC  talk to me 17:04, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I just did a Google "scholar" search and the terms "de" and "des" both came up in the titles of articles. So, they're both used. My suggestion would be to keep the present title but in the first/lead paragraph say something like "also often spelled coureur de bois".  BC  talk to me 17:22, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks!   And I think we should follow your suggestion.    Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:15, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Is the title wrong?

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests January 2012 
;What should I do?
Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so.
* If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use)
* If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used.
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: File:Coureur de bois.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: This article still has material from when voyagers and courer de bois were confused into one article.  I plan to remove or nuance the wording of more of the voyageur descriptions.  By "nuance the wording", when courer de bois did long fur trad freight hauls, (which they sometimes did) then their life and travels were similar to that of the voyageurs.   Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Voyageur descriptions

message: When looking through the previous additions to the talk page I can see that this article has come a long way! When reading through, having a wee bit of background knowledge myself, I became a little confused at points.
(1) When reading "Long distance fur trade canoe travel" I found myself desperately wanting a map! It would be helpful to have a visual showing both routes (one west and the other south) described. Also the title could be more clear, maybe simply "Canoe Routes" or "Canoe Travel". 
(2) I liked that there was mentioning of marriage à la façon du pay. Not many think about the importance of women in the fur trade, but they were critical in the success of coureur des bois. What do you think about either linking marriage à la façon du pay (which has its own page) or going into a little bit of detail- i.e. "Women played a key role as translates, guides and mediators between First Nations and Europeans..."? 
(3) On a similar note, I think the article does a decent job in identifying the French way of adapting to foreign customs and how the First Nations were vital in Europeans survival and exploration. It would be really good to add some details though. Maybe something about coat beaver (trading of old beaver coats for European goods because the felting process was not quite perfected). At the outset trade and commerce was respectful and both parties had much to gain. This idea could be driven a wee bit more.
(4) One thing that isn't mentioned is what drove the Fur Trade...beaver and felt top hats! For context sake this connection needs to be made. 
(5) The distinction between voyageurs and their early counter parts, coureur des bois, is apparent, but still somewhat unclear. I agree that to try and prevent associating one with the other a distinction needs to be made, but the wording seems a little off. Perhaps in mentioning some of the organized companies, that voyageurs were employed under  (Hudson Bay Company and North West Company) would reinforce the difference between licenced and non-licenced.
(6) Personally, I think that images in Wiki articles can make or break them. In this case, I enjoyed the image of Hopkin's watercolour, but the more modern photographs seemed very out of context. In the text there is no mention of coureur des bois passed the beginning of the 18th century while the first picture is of a man from 1889 and the image entitled "A coureur des bois setting out on an expedition" looks quite modern as well. Can the term be used passed initial European contact? It may be helpful to explain the more 'contemporary wood runner' in a text box of its own to make the photos relevant. If not, the images could be replaced by those of a birch bark canoe or beaver pelts- both key in the life of a coureur de bois. 
Overall, this article was pretty straight forward, well documented and clearly organized. It most definitely refreshed some of my former knowledge and made me want to research specifics. There were just the few things I mentioned above that if tweaked would make it a very informative and clear article. If some of my suggestions are changed (or not for that matter) it is still a great resource to gain background information on the beginnings of the Fur Trade in North America, 
I hope some of this helps! I'm llooking forward to other suggestions and opinions!  Jj.Metherell (talk) 02:04, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: -- Moxy (talk) 02:41, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few tweaks up for discussion.  

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Coureur des bois. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100818213508/http://illinoisbrigade.org/ to http://illinoisbrigade.org/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 06:21, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Stop using French words voyageur and coureur des bois in the English Wikipedia. If you did not find proper English translations, make them up or at least adapt French words to English rules in terms of spelling, pronunciation and plural forms.Nemohuman (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop using French words 

message: — Assignment last updated by Cahof (talk) 18:53, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Capstone-Fur Trade

message: in this line "the voyageur, the legal and respectable counterpart to the coureur des bois" the term "respectable" is intended in what way? the following line "Under the voyageurs, the fur trade began to favor a more organized business model of the times, including monopolistic ownership and hired labor" with its invocation of "monopoly" implies to me that centralized control of the fur trade was a desirable outcome from the point of view of the french aristocracy and governance. the use of "respectable" then obscures the class realities of this impact, namely the reduction of mobility for poor people who displaced Indigenous people on these territories, and the attempt by the french to administer stolen lands and the poor in the same way as they do in europe. Kikila mai Tawhiti (talk) 00:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Class blindness and false historicism  

message: Can someone explain what the intended meaning of this is: "They did this by adopting the Indigenous people's ritual practices and marrying Indigenous women." It's in the "reputation" section. It reads ambiguously as though "marrying Indigenous women" is part of "the Indigenous people's ritual practice". It's also very problematic in that it is pan-indigenizing, making it structurally racist in the forms of knowledge it reproduces.
Which Indigenous people? There are thousands of cultures across what is called north america today. Can this be made more specific to the nations or even cultural groups it is supposedly referencing. Especially with the determiner "the Indigenous people's" (people here is also singular). This is really misleading and reductive, bordering on open racism. 
Finally, the sentence also removes all agency from the Indigenous women who, depending on the nation/culture women held a great deal of authority especially around governance and ceremony (patriarchy, in the way this article reproduces it, was imported with europeans). This 1 sentence erases Indigenous women and contributes to structural and obvious racist patriarchal thinking that allows for more and more MMIWG2S and ought to be addressed in a good, respectful way.
The term "ritual practices" ought to be unpacked as well. Does this mean that the europeans participating adopted Indigenous protocols, ceremony, and ways of being? Or is it more appropriative or performative? Did they reject catholicism and capitalism, maybe the european caste/class system? More information is needed to make this sentence make sense. Kikila mai Tawhiti (talk) 19:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: We need to make sure that what is here is accurate, informative and sourcable or sourced. Longer term I've been the most active editor here but I can't speak for the passes which you are talking about because they were added by someone else.   I don't agree with the particular lens that you are using to read other problems into them. Also, sometimes the available info does not have more specifics than you describe; that does not automatically make it bad.  That said,  some of the material in that marriage/ sexual area does seem questionable and and or maybe goes too far into that area for this article.   I'd be in favor of paring down those particular questionable areas.  North8000 (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Neutrality supports settler genocide of Indigenous peoples. The way we frame knowledge also supports that genocide. We need to hold places like Wikipedia accountable for how knowledge is portrayed. Thanks for your response, it's appreciated. Kikila mai Tawhiti (talk) 21:34, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguity and structural racism in 1 sentence