2 part blogger

Imagine that you live in the 1700's and are in the top of fashion with a beaver hat and coat.  The Fur trading companies turned to North America for furs, where mountain men in the west trapped and shipped their furs North, as well as the Ojibwe Indians, who also traded furs for goods.  Voyageurs paddling birch bark canoes transported furs from as far west as Lake Athabasca to Montreal, three thousand miles East. These burly, tough, French-speaking voyageurs started their apprenticeship in their teens, and by the age of 30, they were so physically worn out, that they had to turn to trapping or leading settlers by canoe, to far reaches of western Canada.  The Era of the Voyageur came to an end when silk replaced fur as the fashion in tophats in Europe.

     Such is the history of Voyageurs National Park, which we visited and hiked during a day.  It is really a water park, so we had to be content with just hiking part of the land and seeing the beautiful Lakes and Islands where thousands of boat enthusiasts(especially canoeists )come to paddle this quiet, water retreat of so much history.See a picture of a Voyageur and a pic we took in the Park.