Voyageur: "Five Pipe Lake"

The French Canadian Voyageur endured some of the most difficult daily labor imaginable for any time period.  These particularly hearty travelers were, almost literally, under the gun by Fur Company shareholders who, in their own minds anyway, could not spare a single fur or a minute once the Grand Portage MN spring came, the ice broke up in the Great Lakes and loosened the river roads for paddling.  It is well known that the Voyageur – usually French, Canadian, Native or of mixed blood (metis) – would often carry two ninety pound packs over land, strapping the bottom pack around their foreheads for stability, in order to get to their next navigable water passage.  Once in canoe, Voyageurs would sleep at night no more than 3-4 hours.

Mosquitos and black flies were so thick, the men would build smudge fires under tipped canoes and sleep in smoke, frequently causing respiratory problems and eye damage.  No breakfast was taken, not until several hours progress had been made, then the first meal, almost always dried buffalo (pemmican), might be stirred over a pot (rubbaboo) or eaten raw.  Back underway, the men were reported to keep a brisk pace, up to 40 to 60 strokes per minute – nearly a stroke per second!  Terrain and conditions constantly varied, these small outfits of canoe  men would maintain this pace from the Grand Portage to the meeting destination and back up through the Lakes and onto Upper Superior coast at Pidgeon River, some hand full of miles north of Lutsen and Grand Marais.  The one respite in the sheer monotony of labor the men enjoyed was what was joyfully called 'the pipe.'  "The length of a long portage trail was measured in poses, or resting places.  These were spaced about one-third to one half mile apart, depending on the difficulty of the terrain....On the water, distance was measured by a different method: in 'pipes,' or resting times.  The voyageurs might paddle from 45 minutes to two hours at a stretch, until the guide's command "allumez" (light up!) was given.  The paddles were

immediately laid down and clay pipes were quickly filled with tobacco and lit.  The canoemen smoked, chatted, and relaxed for ten to fifteen minutes before resuming paddling." Moving from one end to another, a great expanse might be called a "five pipe lake" – many of these breaks taken drifting without stopping in order to avoid the biting insects.