Long arms of the Voyageurs?

The voyageurs used a multitude of small arms, with no one easily identifiable long arm.

If one could be singled out it would have been the Brown Bess muskets, which were readily available and prolific given the sheer number which were available in the colonies, and after the Napoleonic wars.
 
Wouldnt surprise me if many also carried trade muskets like what the Hudson Bay Company was giving to the "Indigenous" populations.
 
A British service arm is quite surprising considering the Voyageurs were French. Any documentation? I would have thought French and even English trade type muskets and older French service arms would be more likely. The Napoleonic wars were 1799 - 1815. Wouldn't that be a little late for Voyageur period? Then again, this is not an area where I have any expertise.
 
The HBC purchased a variety of guns for use by "Company servants". Generally smoothbore utility guns.
Voyageurs - canoe paddlers - were laborers. Doubt that they spent much time hunting. Many/most Company servants would not wander far from the various posts. Some would hunt/fish/trap, but they may have been the minority.
 
Okay, many thanks. I guess that they might have needed some kind of gun to protect themselves - perhaps a cut-down Bess or Charleville might have done the job for them - easy to stow in a bateau.
 
As tiraq said, the voyaguers were basically human outboards. They paddled and portaged. They lived on baked beans, pea soup, corn mush and salt pork.

They didn't have time to hunt. The trading posts purchased buffalo meat and pemmican from the Indians and I assume the voyageurs were fed some of that on the return voyage.


From McGill University:


It was expected that each voyageur work at least 14 hours a day, paddle 50 strokes a minute and be able to carry two "pièces" of 90 pounds across each portage. Voyageurs suffered from drowning, hernias and broken limbs, twisted spines, rheumatism as well as clouds of black flies and mosquitoes against which the best repellent was a mix of bear grease and skunk urine. The voyageur's daily routine was a back-breaking one: for the 6 to 8 weeks he was on the road, he was roused as early as 3 am, and set off without eating breakfast. Before 8 o'clock, a breakfast stop was made on a beach. At around 2 in the afternoon, a midday lunch was served on the boat, though often lunch was only an opportunity to chew a piece of pemmican or "biscuit" while rowing. A stop was made for a few minutes each hour to allow the men to have a pipe. This event was so important that distances came to be measured in pipes: 3 pipes might equal 15 to 20 miles of travel. A 32 km lake would be measured as 4 pipes or 4 hours of travel, depending on wind and waves. At nightfall, the canoes were unloaded and turned over to serve as shelters. Supper, which was pre-cooked the night before, was warmed and served. The men dropped down on turf, moss or beach with their heads under the overturned canoes. A tarp provided protection from wind and rain. During the night, a kettle filled with 9 quarts of peas and water was hung over the fire, added to it were strips of pork. This simmered until daylight, when the cook added four "biscuits" and continued to let it simmer. At dawn, the call "lève lève nos gens", resounded through the camp. Canoes were loaded and launched. The swelling of the peas and biscuit had now filled the kettle to the brim, so thick that a stick would stand upright in it. Three pipes, or about 12 miles of paddling were done before breakfast.
 
B_noser said:
A British service arm is quite surprising considering the Voyageurs were French. Any documentation? I would have thought French and even English trade type muskets and older French service arms would be more likely. The Napoleonic wars were 1799 - 1815. Wouldn't that be a little late for Voyageur period? Then again, this is not an area where I have any expertise.
Click to expand...

The CP Rail line was completed in 1882, which basically ended the usefulness of the Voyageurs.

"From the beginning of the fur trade in the 1680s until the late 1870s, the voyageurs were the blue-collar workers of the Montreal fur trade. At their height in the 1810s, they numbered as many as three thousand.[14] "

Many of the small arms in North America were British in origin, as they were the one country which had a standing military presence continent wide essentially. The HBC in fact bought up many of the older arms from the Napoleonic wars, to be re-sold in the New world. Regardless of the fact that the Voyageurs were largely French, trade was still conducted with one of the biggest players at the time (HBC).

The Brown Bess was an issued firearm to the Corps of Canadian Voyageurs when it was stood up in 1812.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyageurs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_of_Canadian_Voyageurs

An excellent read about the founding of Canada by the Fur trade was a 3 book series by Peter C. Newman. ( The Company of Adventurers, Merchant Princes, and Caesars of the Wilderness).
 
The Fur Trade used the Troy measure which was 12 ounces to the pound . So the oft quoted 90 lbs per "piece" or pack weight a voyageur was expected to carry was in fact almost 74lbs in the Avoirdupois measure we use today . Still heavy and dangerous to carry on slippery portages in crappy shoes or barefoot

The troy pound is 5760 grains (≈ 373.24 g, 12 oz t), while an avoirdupois pound is approximately 21.53% heavier at 7000 grains (≈ 453.59 g)
 
A mite late, I know. but many thanks to all for the fascinating responses. The story of the Voyageurs is a vital part of Canadian history, of that there can be no doubt, as can be seen today from the many places named after them in one way or another - Carrying Place in Ontario, not far from the ol' homestead, is just one.

Thanks again.
 
A pretty safe bet would be a long barreled smoothbore fusil. Something that might have been made at the Tulle arsenal or similar. Walnut stock with the distinctive drop of the comb, 42" or longer barrel around 20 ga, flintlock of course. There were many types of trade guns and muskets that may have been carried as well. Type C, Type D and Chief's grade trade guns were carried to trade. Something like this.

 
tiriaq said:
The HBC purchased a variety of guns for use by "Company servants". Generally smoothbore utility guns.
Voyageurs - canoe paddlers - were laborers. Doubt that they spent much time hunting. Many/most Company servants would not wander far from the various posts. Some would hunt/fish/trap, but they may have been the minority.
Click to expand...

I concur with Tiriaq. It is important to choose which era (HBC, Northwest Company, or courieurs de bois. Each had its distinct social strata and pecking order. The labourers were not viewed the same as gentlemen. The voyageurs that come to my mind, lived after 1759 and before the railroads. They were Canadiens from the St Lawrence and Ottawa River valleys, hired for the boat skills and their pack mule abilities in equal measure. Many men were ruptured and broken long before their deaths by other causes. If the competition was to get their canoes upriver to the posts as early in the season as possible, I doubt they would have had much interest in losing a day hunting.
 
I would be surprised if the voyagers carried any guns for protection or at most, one or two per canoe. I would suspect they depended more on good relations with the tribes along the way. Also, bundles weighed in troy pounds makes a lot more sense in terms of how much they carried when portaging. The 200 modern pound packs has always struck me as possible but improbable.

cheers mooncoon
 
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