Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Wilderness Life: Fur Trade and the Voyageurs

Alexis St. Martin, the man who was experimented on by Dr. Beaumont, was a voyageur.

What was a voyageur? How did he live?

To help us get answers for these questions, view these two short videos below. Though these videos are set in the West Coast of the United States, yet the life they portray is similar to that in every fort and for every voyageur.






Read the text from the link below. Use the reporters questions and fill in as much information as you can, assuming you are interviewing Alexis St. Martin about his job as a voyageur.

http://www.wildernessclassroom.com/www/schoolhouse/boreal_library/voyageurs/index.htm

If your individual assignment is to script an interview with a voyageur, use the information you learned in the previous article and in the videos to do so. Your interview should contain approximately five questions and at least three minutes long when performed. Make sure to refer to the Five W's chart before starting your interview.

If you have a different individual assignment, click on this link and to test your knowledge of the fur trade.

3 comments:

won hyung choi said...

Group of peple who traded beaver fur called voyageurs. As many beavers trapped on the east coast, voyageurs needed to go to the east coast. Therefore, their travled over 3000 miles. they trade beaver fur with the iron kettles, guns, and money. Most of beavers were trapped on the east coast so as day passed, beavers reached to the extinction. Therefore voyagerus stopped hunting beavers and voyageurs declined

Gilian said...

Fur trading was begun by French people. French explorers were looking for route of China, how ever, they could not find it. Instead of it, they found many furs of animal and they thought fur trading will be good business. During the 18th and 19th centuries, beaver was the most valuable fur, and it was popular in fashions to Europeans. Most Europeans wanted to have a beaver hat, so European began the huge trading operations in the US and Canada. Beavers were trapped a lot and they became close to extinction. People tried to stop the industry so they could protect the ecosystem.

Goran said...

in 18 and 19 centery in europe fur was very famous and everubody wanted to wear it.So the french prople saw the fur that they found on the island as a good opportunity to start great buisness.