What activities can you do at the Festival du Voyageur?

What activities can you do at the Festival du Voyageur?

The festival includes music, dance, a snow sculpture contest, a parade, period food, a sugar shack, a bar, a live presentation on the life of the voyageurs, and so on. Thousands of people take part in the uninterrupted activities in Whittier Park, Fort Gibraltar and St. Boniface, over a period of ten days.

Why is Festival du Voyageur celebrated?

It celebrates Canada’s fur-trading past and unique French heritage and culture through entertainment, arts and crafts, music, exhibits, and displays. The word “Voyageur” refers to those who worked for a fur-trading company and usually travelled by canoe.

What is the mascot of Festival du Voyageur?

Léo La Tuque
One year later, a sculpture of a toque and boots took first place in the snow sculpting contest and inspired the image of Léo La Tuque, who became in 1972 the official mascot and trademark of Festival du Voyageur.

Is the Festival du Voyageur Metis?

Festival du Voyageur gathers by the Red River, on the ancestral land of the Cree, Oji-Cree, Ojibwe, Dene, and Dakota people, the Homeland of the Métis Nation, and Treaty 1 Territory. In 2021, we will be commemorating 150 years since the signing of Treaty 1.

What games did the voyageurs play?

Games include leg wrestling, voyageur wrestling, pillow fights, tug of war and log sawing.

What does Voyageur mean in English?

a woodsman, guide, trapper, boatman, or explorer, esp in the North. Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers. Word origin. C19: from French: traveller, from voyager to voyage.

When was Festival du Voyageur created?

February 26, 1970Festival du Voyageur / First event date

Who were voyageurs?

“Voyageur”, the French word for traveler, refers to the contracted employees who worked as canoe paddlers, bundle carriers, and general laborers for fur trading firms from the 1690s until the 1850s. This is why voyageurs were also known as “engagés”, a loose French expression translated as “employees”.

What food does Festival du Voyageur have?

For Festival Du Voyageur 2021, online attendees can order their choice of meal from the comfort of home, ranging from mouth-watering Smashed Tourtière Poutine to Vegan Wild Mushroom Strudel. A staple of the festival, the annual Pea Soup Competition is also going virtual.

What did the voyageurs wear?

Voyageurs could be identified by their distinctive clothing. They often wore a red toque and a sash around their waist. The white cotton shirt was protection from the sun and mosquitoes. They also wore breeches with leggings and moccasins.

What did a voyageur do?

Voyageurs were independent contractors, workers or minor partners in companies involved in the fur trade. They were licensed to transport goods to trading posts and were usually forbidden to do any trading of their own. The fur trade changed over the years, as did the groups of men working in it.

What did voyageurs do in a day?

The men paddled from sunrise to sunset, heaving back-breaking packs of trade goods and furs over grueling portages. There were many risks, many men drowned, suffered broken limbs, twisted spines, hernias, and rheumatism. The voyageurs needed food that was high in calories and would not spoil as they travelled.

What does voyageur mean in English?

What did the voyageurs look like?

What language did the voyageurs speak?

Although the new employers were English, the working language would remain French. In Making the Voyageur World, Carolyn Podruchny estimates the number of voyageurs at 500 in 1784, 1,500 in 1802 and 3,000 in 1821 at the height of the fur trade.

What does voyageurs mean in English?

What did voyageurs do?

What types of food did the voyageurs need and eat?

They ate native foods such as berries, nuts and wild rice. They traded goods for wild rice, fish, and dried peas. The also ate pemmican, which is dried buffalo.