Listening to the Fur Trade: Soundways and Music in the British North American Fur Trade, 1760–1840

321 Pages·2022·7.604 MB·English

by  Daniel Robert Laxer

LISTENING to the
FUR TRADE
McGill-Queen’s Studies in Early Canada / Avant le Canada
Series Editors / Directeurs de la collection : Allan Greer
and Carolyn Podruchny
This series features studies of the history of the northern half of North America – a vast expanse
that would eventually be known as Canada – in the era before extensive European settlement and
extending into the nineteenth century. Long neglected, Canada-before-Canada is a fascinating area
of study experiencing an intellectual renaissance as researchers in a range of disciplines, including
history, geography, archeology, anthropology, literary studies, and law, contribute to a new and
enriched understanding of the distant past. The editors welcome manuscripts in English or French
on all aspects of the period, including work on Indigenous history, the Atlantic fisheries, the fur
trade, exploration, French or British imperial expansion, colonial life, culture, language, law,
science, religion, and the environment.
Cette série de monographies est consacrée à l’histoire de la partie septentrionale du continent
de l’Amérique du nord, autrement dit le grand espace qui deviendra le Canada, dans les siècles
qui s’étendent jusqu’au début du 19e. Longtemps négligé par les chercheurs, ce Canada-avant-
le-Canada suscite beaucoup d’intérêt de la part de spécialistes dans plusieurs disciplines, entre
autres, l’histoire, la géographie, l’archéologie, l’anthropologie, les études littéraires et le droit. Nous
assistons à une renaissance intellectuelle dans ce champ d’étude axé sur l’interaction de premières
nations, d’empires européens et de colonies. Les directeurs de cette série sollicitent des manuscrits,
en français ou en anglais, qui portent sur tout aspect de cette période, y compris l’histoire
des autochtones, celle des pêcheries de l’atlantique, de la traite des fourrures, de l’exploration,
de l’expansion de l’empire français ou britannique, de la vie coloniale (Nouvelle-France, l’Acadie,
Terre-Neuve, les provinces maritimes, etc.), de la culture, la langue, le droit, les sciences, la religion
ou l’environnement.
1 A Touch of Fire 3 Listening to the Fur Trade
Marie-André Duplessis, the Hôtel-Dieu of Soundways and Music in the British North
Quebec, and the Writing of New France American Fur Trade, 1760–1840
Thomas M. Carr, Jr Daniel Robert Laxer
2 Entangling the Quebec Act
Transnational Contexts, Meanings,
and Legacies in North America and the
British Empire
Edited by Ollivier Hubert
and François Furstenberg
LI STENING to the
FUR TRADE
Soundways and Music in the British
North American Fur Trade, 1760–1840
Daniel Robert Laxer
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022
ISBN 978-0-2280-0859-0 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0981-8 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0982-5 (ePUB)
Legal deposit first quarter 2022
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled),
processed chlorine free
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the
Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds
provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Listening to the fur trade : soundways and music in the British North American fur trade,
1760–1840 / Daniel Robert Laxer.
Names: Laxer, Daniel Robert, author.
Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in early Canada ; 3.
Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s studies in early Canada ; 3 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2021032595X | Canadiana (ebook) 20210326174 | ISBN 9780228008590
(cloth) | ISBN 9780228009818 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228009825 (ePUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Fur traders – Songs and music – History and criticism. | LCSH: Fur trade – Canada –
History – 18th century. | LCSH: Fur trade – Canada – History – 19th century.
Classification: LCC ML3563.3 .L39 2021 | DDC 780.97109/033 – dc23
This book was designed and typeset by Peggy & Co. Design in 11/14 Adobe Garamond Pro.
Contents
Tables and Figures vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Special Terms xiii
Introduction 3
1 With a Bang: Gunpowder and Firearms 24
2 Musical Encounters 50
3 Military Instruments and “Turned” Drums 62
4 Dances of Diplomacy 81
5 Soundways Montreal to La Cloche 107
6 Paddling Songs; Chansons D’aviron 130
7 Indigenous Hunting and Healing Songs 157
8 Music of the Trading Posts 191
Conclusion 230
Notes 237
Bibliography 269
Index 301

Tables and Figures
Tables
8.1 Jaw harps at North West Company trading posts, 1821 210
8.2 Violin strings at North West Company trading posts,
1820–21 210
Figures
0.1 Overview map of trading posts mentioned in this book xv
1.1 North West Gun, c. 1813–20. Royal Ontario
Museum. 969.75 33
3.1 Rudolf Steiger, Deputation of Indians from the Chippewa Tribes to
the President of Upper Canada, Sir Frederic Ph. Robinson, K.C.B.,
Major General, etc. in 1815, 1815. Watercolour, gouache, and gum
arabic on wove paper, mounted on wove paper, 25.5 × 35.8 cm.
Purchased 1989, National Gallery of Canada. Accession no. 30237.
Photo: NGC 72
4.1 Calumet Song transcribed by Jolliet and Marquette, Early Narratives
of the Northwest, edited by Louise Phelps Kellogg, (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917), 247–8 88–89
5.1 Map, St Anne’s and Lachine 113
5.2 Map, Petit Rocher to St Anne’s 117
5.3 Map, La Cloche to St Anne’s 127
5.4 “Sketch of Lake Huron, 1788 circumnavigated by Gother
Mann, Capt. commanding Royal Engineers in Canada.”
Maps and cartographic material, Item ID 4169996, Library
and Archives Canada 128
viii Tables and Figures
5.5 “La Cloche,” in a postcard from the 1920s.
Private collection 129
6.1 From the collection of fur trader Edward Ermatinger,
recorded ~1827–30, “Folk songs, French-Canada, ca. 1830.”
Library and Archives Canada, Series A2, Volume 4, Item 9
(MG 19, R7712-0-7-E): 2 143
8.1 Painted panel ca 1800, York Factory Depot Building. Photo: Parks
Canada / York Factory National Historic Site 196
8.2 Plan of Fort William, sketch drawn by Lord Selkirk, 1816 (Archives
of Ontario, F 481, MU3279) 205
8.3 Excavated jaw harps. Left: Fort White Earth, “Historic HBCo +
NWCo 1810–1813,” Royal Alberta Museum (Borden #: GaPb-3,
Catalogue #H69.3.1154). Right: Rossdale site near Fort Edmonton,
Royal Alberta Museum (Borden #: F; Pi-63, Catalogue #2127).
Photographs by the author 209
8.4 Red River jig, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, 1860,
Volume 21, 585. Reproduction courtesy Michigan State
University Libraries 226
Preface
If the historian’s task is to cobble together an understanding of the past, how-
ever imperfect, based on fragmentary evidence, how on earth is it possible to
reconstruct how it sounded? Time destroys all but the most resilient materials,
under the most favourable conditions. By their nature, sound, music, and dance
are ephemeral. No matter how much we wish otherwise, performances vanish
when they finish, except in the minds of the performers and audience. After
centuries, there are but tenuous connections with our sounded past. How can
we trace intangible cultural phenomenon from the era before sound recording?
If you look carefully, as I do in this book, it is actually remarkable how much
of the fur trade’s written record, oral history, and material culture describes and
reveals its sounded and musical history. In the period from 1760 to 1840, the
landscape over which the fur trade was conducted was punctuated by many
human-made sounds. Generally, only the prominent and noteworthy made it
onto the written page. They were produced by shouting, gunpowder, singing,
dancing, rattles, jingles, drums, fiddles, and, very occasionally, bagpipes. Fur
trade interactions were usually, in a word, noisy.
In the pages ahead, I explore how sound and music operated between
peoples in the rapidly expanding fur trade network: between men and women;
Indigenous and European; bourgeois and voyageur; master and servant. In
the late eighteenth century the fur trade reached the furthest extents of North
America and had global supply networks of personnel and materials. Logistical
considerations were shaped by the seasons. Water routes that stretched thou-
sands of kilometres and connected trading posts from the St Lawrence to Lake
Athabasca and Hudson Bay to the west coast were reliant on the precious
summer months when the northern rivers were ice-free. The human encounters
that manifested along these routes during the eighty-year period of this study
were remarkable for a number of reasons. The fur trade brought not the arrival