Fur Trade – French Posts
From:
Ontario Historical Society article…excerpts from page 132 – 134+
LAST
OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE FRENCH POSTS IN THE NORTHERN PART OF NORTH AMERICA
By: The
Honourable William Renwick Riddell,
L.L.D., D.C.L., Etc.
The “Bulletin”
found a copy of the document in the Public Archives of Canada at Ottawa.
-
“It
was published at Paris in Les Archives de la Marine. It is destitute of signature, date and address;
and the author, date, occasion and purpose are all equally unknown.”
(They are guessing the date of circa
1763, after the Treaty of Paris)
Of interest to Nipigon history are
these five posts…
TABITIBI
Is a Post
dependent upon Temiskamingue; it is a
hundred and twenty leagues towards Hudson’s Bay – there may be a hundred men in
these two Posts who do not cultivate the soil, who have no village and who live by the chase and fishing. The whole country is mountainous and but
little fertile.
There come
from this Post annually about a hundred and twenty bales of beaver,
sable, otter, porcupine carcajou, lynx and cariboo.
LE SAULT
STE-MARIE
A Fort of
piles situate on the strait leading from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. This Post was established in 1750, and, to
encourage the establishment, the King granted the trade to the Commandant
gratis – there is a fee of three hundred livres taken for Michilimakinac upon
which this Post depends.
The Saulteux
do their trading there – there come from it about a hundred bales annually.
MICHIPICOTON
A privileged
Post situated on the north-east of Lake Superior – the Saulteux come there to
trade – it supplies fifty to sixty bales.
NEPIGON
Post
established to the north of Lake Superior, which comprehends the Lake
a la Carpe, situated still further to the north. The Commandant is the concessionaire, paying
three thousand livres: the Indians who
come there to trade are the Saulteux, and from it come annually from eighty
to one hundred bales.
KAMANESTIGOUIA
Or Three
Rivers, a Post situated to the north-west of Lake Superior, farmed out of four
thousand livres until 1758 – now there are neither presents nor licensees.
The Saulteux still trade at this Post from which
come annually from sixty to seventy bales
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