Almanac – coureur des bois
December 30th, 2011This week’s almanac entry is the coureur des bois. These are the independent fur trappers of the Everique wilderness. The trapper who fell in love with Snow-by-Night was one.
Brittany and I are making our schedule for the coming year. If you know of a convention that you think we should attend, please let us know. You can either reply in the comments below, post to our Facebook page, or send me an email. We’ll happily take all suggestions and see what we can do.
Odd, since that isn’t against their rules.
Oh never mind, there you are.
Snow by Night also appeared in the Giant’s Report Inappropriate Ads thread. Some one claimed that my black banner of Snow-by-Night on the roof (an image from page 1) was two people kissing and kissing was inappropriate. It cause quite a long discussion. Alas, the Giant deleted most of it.
By the way Eric, have you seen that your ad banner on Giant in the Playground got a thread started in their forums?
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218800
GitP’ers tend to appreciate discussions with the author, if you’re of a mind.
Can’t the independants be caught at the point of sale, rather than in the wilderness? And if the purchasing merchant wants to buy along a deserted stretch of coast, they’re still going to need a port to reprovision for the return voyage, right?
Oh, they certainly could be caught at the point of sale. If the Crown wants to enforce the rule, that’s usually where they do it. To avoid this, the coureurs sell their furs at the widely scattered trading posts that the colony maintains along the rivers and lakes. Since furs look a lot alike and the coureurs stretch their hides in the same manner of the natives, it is nearly impossible to tell which furs are trapped by natives and which are trapped by these entrepreneurs. An important part of being a coureur is to find which trading posts are willing to take independent furs and which are sticklers for the rules. Those that don’t figure this out aren’t coureurs for long.