Postscript: What’s in a name?
The painting above by Frances Anne Hopkins (1838 – 1919, British), entitled Shooting the Rapids (1879), portrays the voyageurs of the Canadian fur trade in action. Mostly Québécois with some Acadien, Métis, and Anglo souls in the ranks for good measure, they are the inspiration behind the company name. In fact, they remind me a little of the Vikings. Perhaps it’s due in part to the fact that they have a variant of the Scandinavian legend of the Wild Hunt (Refer to the painting by Arbo in Article 2 of Fieldsports and The Faith.), one they call La Chasse-galerie. The story goes that a band of voyageurs, probably encamped near one of the Great Lakes, make a pact with the Devil, risking their souls to be transported New Year’s Eve through the air in a canoe to their sweethearts in Montreal.
Very well, the World takes all kinds. And since voyageurs made love not war, I’ll grant they were nicer and better behaved than Vikings. Even so, we Swedes (but perhaps not Norwegians) still look great in a bikini. Oh, I don’t mean me personally – but the ladies, yes. Although if you’ve read Article 3 of Fieldsports, Empire and Old Line and trust my Grandfather Jones’ opinion, you’d agree the challenge is finding one that isn’t dull or cranky.
But getting back on track, if life history is a reliable measure, then my charism is more akin to the voyageurs’ predecessors, the coureurs des bois – their opposition to Jesuit missionary efforts notwithstanding. Now, these characters were the heart and soul of the Canadian fur trade in the 17th and 18th Centuries, coursing the Adirondacks that I love and of whom I am often reminded while pursuing trout on rivers with names such as the ‘Ausable’ and the ‘Boquet.’ And though their lives were hard and usually short, the coureurs des bois truly lived, not simply existing in the common manner. For this reason, they’ve left an impression on me. In fact, I even created a ‘Ticonderoga-class’ wet fly in their honor (Refer to The Trinity in the Taconics.).
Of course, nothing under the Sun lasts forever. The coureurs des bois were a bit too independent for the ‘Powers that Be’ in Ville-Marie and were eventually replaced by less troublesome company employees, a.k.a. the voyageurs. Funny how societies, when choosing between types, prefer the career navy man over the privateer more often than not.
No matter, though, because the West is now in a late civilizational milieu, ineffectual and double-minded men on every side, wherein there’s hardly an institution – Church, State, or otherwise – that works as good or better than it did 50-years earlier. But thankfully, the coureurs des bois demonstrate how we might get things done in spite of it all. Such is the reason this Anglophone, who reads history and has spent enough time afield in the North Country, has latched onto their legacy.
Yet, if I do have greater affinity for the coureurs des bois, then it doesn’t change anything. The voyageurs still had dash and flare, took hardship in stride, and are therefore worthy of a namesake. Moreover, when I consider their exploits around the Great Lakes, I can’t resist likening them to the spirit conveyed in Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1976), which is a favorite of mine, even if tying the two together may be a conceit.
But in the final analysis, ‘Voyageurs Fieldsport’ just has a ring to it. I can’t leave it alone, and hopefully neither can you. Therefore, please look me up if you desire to catch more fish – either on the fly or in some other sense of the phrase.
Article 1 Introduction
Article 2 New York
Article 3 Grandpa Jones and the Swedes
Article 4 Maryland
Article 5 The Best of Both Worlds
Fieldsports, Empire and Old Line Vignettes