Fur Trade Words and Phrases Trivia Quiz

Answer: An ice chisel

Every well-equipped fur trader carried a tranche in his kit. A tranche came in handy when they had to chip the ice off the canoe or the paddles during spring thaw or early winter freeze-up. Life wasn't easy for these folks!

Answer: Moose

No one seems to know where the word orignal sprang from. It could be a misspelling/mispronunciation of original, and came to mean a moose because the first person to call it that had never seen one before. (Moose aren't exactly thick on the ground in the Orkneys, where many of the Hudson's Bay men came from, although the French Voyageurs from Quebec would have recognized them).

Answer: All of these

When one reads the journals and reports of the fur traders, one is always amazed at the great distances they travelled, often over difficult terrain or along raging rivers. If they were travelling by canoe they had to carry the canoe - and its load - between navigable waters (they called this portaging, from the French 'porter' meaning 'to carry'). And they travelled in all sorts of weather conditions - lashing rain, mosquito-laden heat, freezing cold. An indomitable bunch, those fur traders!

Answer: Something that was cracked or patched

You've heard of crazy quilts, made up of bits and pieces of cloth? The fur traders' term usually applied to canoes or boats that had been repaired over and over again. It could also be a reference to patched footwear or clothing.

Answer: Gold or silver braid decoration on military uniforms

The fur traders were not highly enamoured of the military officers they encountered. They thought them a bit sissy in their red coats and white pantaloons, and that gold or silver trimming on their hats and cuffs was a bit over the top as far as the traders were concerned.

Answer: He was exhausted

After putting in a hard day hauling 100 lb bales over rough ground, or paddling for hours on end, or portaging a canoe from one water's edge to another, I would think that most of the fur traders would refer to themselves as knocked up.

Answer: The native woman to whom he was married

Most of the fur traders formed alliances with native women. The custom was called 'mariage au facon du pays', and they were what we call common law marriages because there were no clergy to perform church weddings until the Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries arrived in the west in 1818 and 1820 respectively. Such alliances, as well as providing the fur traders with stable relationships, also made good economic sense - the trader had access to his wife's clan and the furs that the natives traded for goods. Anyone who can trace his or her family tree back to the late 18th/early 19th centuries in Western Canada is descended from a country wife and her fur trader husband. Once the missionaries arrived they were kept very busy marrying these couples, and baptizing their numerous offspring. (The clergy insisted that either the traders married their country wives in the church, or put them aside and make provision for their offspring. To their credit, the vast majority hied themselves off to church and went through the marriage ceremony.)

Answer: The manager of a fur trading post

The factors in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company were important people in the fur trade. They ran the trading posts, provided trade goods, paid the traders, and established good relations with native people who did the actual fur trapping. The Hudson's Bay Company factors kept meticulous records, which are housed in the Manitoba Provincial Archives. They are fascinating to read.

Answer: Cooking pots

A kettle was usually a round pot made of cast iron, with a handle by which it would hang over the cooking fire. On their nightly stopovers, the fur traders would make stews (rabbit, grouse, fish - whatever was available) for the major meal of the day. Most of the time, they subsisted on pemmican, a native staple made of dried buffalo meat, mixed with wild berries (usually saskatoons or blueberries) and suet, and packed into hide pouches.

Answer: Rum

The fur traders were hard drinkers (they needed something to make the rigours of their lives easier to bear) and rum was the drink of choice.