The Northern Inland Trade Route, from the Saguenay to the Ottawa: Building an Hypothesis

Summary

Trigger suggested that a web of trade routes in the first half of the 17th century followed the St. Lawrence but also extended northward. New archaeological data since Trigger’s original work show that as soon as the French were present along the St. Lawrence at the beginning of the 17th century, east-west trade of European goods inland to the lower Great Lakes became regular as the fur trade was established. However, Trigger described a different pattern for the 16th century, that is a network of west-east inland trade routes, arching north of the St. Lawrence from the Saguenay to the Ottawa. We may thus ask whether the fur trade induced such a dramatic shift in trading patterns, from the northern route into the St. Lawrence Valley? Part of the answer may lie in a change of actors involved: the 16th century trade mainly involved nomadic hunter-gatherer groups and late sedentary Woodland peoples, while the 17th century trade saw an intensification of European participation, particularly by the French. How do archaeological data reflect this shift over time?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Revisiting Facts and Ideas of Contact in the St. Lawrence Basin during the 16th Century

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-36,04