Program: The Voyagers
Speakers: Pat Crimans, BS, industrial management and sales (retired), Scientech Club member
Introduced By: Rick Whitener
Attendance: NESC: 88, Zoom: 33
Guest(s): Sarah Hemmer, Tom Jenkins
Scribe: Russell Judd
Editor: Carl Warner
View a recording of today’s Zoom presentation at:
Today's Program 042224
Pat Crimans was our speaker today. His subject was subtitled “How European Fashion and a Rodent Helped Shape a State and Explore and Modernize the Early American West.” Pat is a Purdue graduate and a recent Scientech member. He enjoys Canada, its history, and fishing and boating.
Exploration of Canada began in the 17th century with Champlain. Champlain founded Quebec and several other settlements along the St Lawrence River. French and British exploration moved west while Spanish exploration was more south and west. The colonists and Indians needed tools and goods. Ships coming to Quebec needed some means of taking the goods and trading inland. Also at that time, beaver hats were popular in Europe. Thus a trade economy for needed goods and beaver pelts was established.
Explorers were needed to take the goods up the rivers and overland to trade for beaver skins. These men were called Voyageurs. The Montreal men used canoes and carried goods from Montreal up the rivers and lakes and across Lake Superior. A different group, the north men, then took the goods farther west. Boating in the north lakes could use longer boats, but shorter ones were needed more inland because of the geography’s smaller waterways and frequent portages. The big Montreal
canoes often carried 8000lbs. On portages between lakes, men often carried two packs of 90-100 lbs. each. It was hard, high calorie intake, work. The men worked long hours and learned boating skills from the Indians and settlers.
The area wrapping around Hudson Bay is called the Canadian Shield. Here, land has been scraped of top soil by past glaciers; granite and shale are exposed and lake water is clear. The US and Canadian border was established in 1783 and runs along the old Voyageur highway between Lake of the Woods and Grand Portage.
Thank s Pat for a very enjoyable history and geology talk.
Pat Crimans
