Summary Of The Fur Trade

The fur trade was the second staple industry in Canada and at the time was a dominant source of employment. The Montreal fur trade emerged slightly after the Hudson Bay fur trade and employed a distinctly different structure. The main difference that emerged with the Montreal fur trade was that it hired voyageurs to transport fur and goods all across central Canada. In her article, Carolyn Podruchny explores the relationships between the servant voyageurs and their bourgeois masters and the “labour disputes and power struggles which characterize the trade” (69). During the Montreal fur trade, voyageurs resisted their master’s authority to significantly control their working conditions. In her article, Podruchny develops her work well; however, …show more content…
The bourgeois-masters obviously wanted a quick pace from their servant-voyageurs to ensure “quick, efficient and profitable fur trade operations” (57). Ultimately, the pace was one area where the voyageurs had significant control, which they subsequently used as leverage to influence their working conditions. Thus, it is no surprise that “when masters made unreasonable demands or failed to provide adequate provisions, voyageurs responded by working more slowly” (69). Given the remote nature of many routes, the only way bourgeois masters could ensure efficient travel was by keeping his voyageurs loyal and honest. The easiest way master could ensure loyalty amongst his servant-voyageurs was by following through on his “paternal duties, such as attempting to protect their men from dangers in the workplace, providing medicines, and treating men with respect” (57-58), effectively meeting the demands of the voyageurs. In other words, the master’s would not be able to achieve his agenda without fulfilling the voyageur demands. As a result, this meant that the pace of work played a huge role in the voyageurs control of working conditions because it forced masters to either allow voyageurs to control their own pace or to give them the better conditions, which they sought …show more content…
The first issue of unreliability is that the evidence that Podruchny is very old, some of it dating back to over 300 years ago. This will obviously contribute to unreliability in the data because there are fewer total sources, so it is extremely difficult to verify stories. In addition, the old age will also mean that a great deal of evidence may have been destroyed, and so there may be many gaps in the stories or events completely forgotten altogether. This will limit the validity of the claims because it does not provide the whole picture, nor is