French Canadians played key roles within the North West Company in the building, management, and shareholding of the various trading posts scattered throughout the West, as well as being closely involved in the actual trading with natives. Very closely, a unique culture developed from the mixed-race descendants of early unions between
Indigenous women and French settler and trapper men. Within generations a distinct Métis culture developed in central and western Canada, spreading down the Columbia River (perhaps, though, not into the Willamette Valley where a similar, unique culture developed). French Canadians came to stay; they had offspring and families, and their DNA runs throughout the West today. This contrasted to HBC’s use of contracts and sending employees back home after a tour, both Scots, English, and Orkney men rich with their bonus nest egg. For French Canadian descendants the derogatory term “half-breed” was used to demean, its absence from our language today gives evidence that we can rise above this type of nonsense and live as brothers and sisters (and husbands and wives). The Farm is a tribute to these peoples and others, their beliefs, cultures and living styles melded, and a celebration of their treating others and this Earth with care and respect.
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/French-Canadians.pdf
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/A-Washington-State-History-Farm.pdf
https://fahfminn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Resettlement-french-canadian-emigrants.pdf
https://www.thefrancophone.com/post/frenchtown-washington-state-s-historical-connection-to-first-nations-and-francophone-history
https://www.ubcpress.ca/french-canadians-furs-and-indigenous-women-in-the-making-of-the-pacific-northwest
http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-535/The_French_Canadian_Contribution_to_the_Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition:_Taking_the_Measure_of_a_Continent.html
Of the 3 fur companies in the West, which one did the most to create the French-Canadian Metis culture?
Pacific Fur Co.
Hudson’s Bay Co.
North West Co.
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