What is the Difference in a Mountain Man Rendezvous and Voyageur Rendezvous?
The North American Fur Trade: Timeline, Transitions, and Tribal Impacts - When most people hear “rendezvous,” they picture the rugged mountain men of the Rocky Mountains, buckskin-clad trappers gathering in a festive wilderness carnival that only lasted 15 years. In contrast, the Voyageur Rendezvous—centered in the Great Lakes spanned nearly two centuries! Voyageur is a French word, meaning “traveler”. Voyageurs were French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs by canoe during the fur trade years. From the beginning of the fur trade in the 1680s until the late 1870s, the voyageurs were the blue-collar workers of the Montreal fur trade. At their height in the 1810s, they numbered as many as 3,000 men. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company started the western rendezvous tradition in Wyoming in 1825. What began as a practical gathering to exchange pelts for supplies and reorganize trapping units evolved into a month long carnival in the middle of the wilderness. The gathering was not confined to trappers, and attracted women and children, Indians, French Canadians, and travelers. Go to Article >>