The History Behind "Song for the Hunter" ~ Author's Note

With two new books releasing at the beginning of this year, I hope you'll indulge me today as I share a bit from my author's note about my novel Song for the Hunter, a romantic and adventurous story set mostly on Lake Superior's Madeline Island (in the story called by it's earlier name, St. Michel's) in 1808.

Tragedy brought them together, but learning the truth might tear them apart.

Métis hunter Bemidii Marchal has never played his flute to court a maiden, but he considers the possibility at Fort William’s Great Rendezvous. However, when rescuing his sister causes an influential man’s death, the hunter becomes the hunted. Bemidii flees for refuge to Lake Superior’s Madeline Island and takes the name his French father called him, Benjamin.

Carrying a secret, Camilla Bonnet travels with her husband into the wilderness where tragedy awaits. Left alone, she fears “Benjamin” but is forced to trust him. As she does, their friendship grows and turns to deeper feelings. Then Bemidii discovers more about the man he killed. Now the secret he hides might turn Camilla’s heart away—and demand his life.

I appreciate everyone who has entered the world of the Lake Superior fur trade with me through my posts on CQ, via the world created in my previous novel Mist O'er the Voyageur, and now in the sequel Song for the Hunter. While the story of my hero Bemidii Marchal and heroine Camilla Bonnet is completely fictitious, there are a number of people mentioned in the story who did forge history, at least somewhat similarly to the way I showed them doing so in the story.

Michel and Madeleine (Equasayway) Cadotte, indeed, headed the most renowned fur trade family of the Apostle Islands and in northern Wisconsin, and their sons carried on in their stead. The largest of the Apostle Islands where their trading post was built is now called Madeline Island—named in her honor. The La Pointe post was built near the ruins of an old military fort that had been occupied at the southern end of the island during the French and Indian Wars. Today, visiting La Pointe by ferry, you are not only afforded the joy of basking in the windswept beauty of the island, still sitting like a gem in sparkling Lake Superior among the archipelago of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, but you can also take in the lovely setting of historic Bayfield, Wisconsin, on the distant hills of the mainland.

Michel’s great-grandfather, Mathurin Cadot (changed later to Cadotte), was the first family member to arrive at Lake Superior in the 1600s. It was Michel’s father, Jean-Baptiste Sr. who, most critically, established fur-trading posts along the southern shore of the lake, all the way to Chequamegon Bay where this story takes place. Three of Michel and Madeleine’s sons continued the tradition, serving important roles in both the fur trade and the War of 1812. It was their son-in-law, Lyman Warren, who took over the post on Madeline Island after Michel retired. Under Lyman’s direction, the post became the American Fur Company’s primary trading post in the region.

Around the middle of the novel, Michel mentions that his stores at Lac Courte Oreille had been robbed the year before. That was an event that took place when the famed Indian called the Prophet, brother to the great Tecumseh, began preaching his religion that advocated banning the trade of whiskey. He also taught that the Indians should not furnish meat to the white traders unless it was boned. As his religion spread, some Indians took to harassing traders wherever they could, including breaking in and destroying stores, as happened to Cadotte at Lac Courte Oreilles, some seventy-five miles south of Chequamegon Bay. The Prophet was defeated in 1811 by Mad Anthony Wayne at Tippecanoe, and the death of Tecumseh followed in 1813.

The novel also mentions that the Americans would be coming soon to take over French trade in the area. As a matter of fact, there were plenty of American fur traders already in Wisconsin. In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, in which territories and states were formed around the Great Lakes. While Wisconsin was part of Indiana Territory, it was not much affected by United States laws until Jay’s Treaty of 1795, which contained a provision for British withdrawal from the region. If you read Brigitte and René’s story in my novel Mist O’er the Voyageur, you might recall how the French had withdrawn from Grand Portage, leaving it to the British, and now that, too, would fall under American jurisdiction.

Michel Cadotte, though a Frenchman, was an independent trader who plied his trade in whichever direction his interests were best served. He transitioned his work from Canada’s North West Company to John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company shortly after the conclusion of this novel.

As to the presence of my heroine, Camilla Bonnet, history tells us that—but for the occasional company partner’s wife taking a summer trip with her husband into the Upper Country—there were only two white women who permanently resided in Wisconsin at this time. They were Mrs. Charles de Langlade at La Saye and Mrs. Jean Marie Cardinal at Prairie du Chien. Nevertheless, I felt it plausible that someone like Camilla might have arrived with her bourgeois husband Ambroise, and … let’s just say my imagination took over from there. Perhaps there actually was someone like Camilla living here in this vast Great Lakes country, and history simply lost track of her.

I hope you’ll read Song for the Hunter, and enjoy this glimpse into the rich history of America’s fur trading past as much as I did. Please leave an online review for Bemidii and Camilla’s story if you enjoy it!

Available at: Amazon, ChristianBook, Barnes&Noble, and direct from the publisher: ISM

Add it to your wish list on Goodreads and Bookbub.

Blessings,

Naomi

https://naomimusch.com/ 

The 22 Apostles - Jewels of Lake Superior

Don't islands spell romance? It seems to me the very notion of an island visit can conjure up images of beauty, rest, and romance--or in some cases, lurking danger.

Okay, my writer brain is already taking off. Today I want to introduce someone out there to the Apostle Islands. If you live in the upper Midwest, you probably know something about them, or maybe you've visited the Apostles yourself. I suspect that there are a lot of people who don't know about this national treasure.

The Apostle Island National Lakeshore is only fifty years old by designation as a national park, but its beauty and importance in our economy is centuries old. The Apostles sit just off the Bayfield peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The moody waters are home to a host of shipwrecks, some which can be seen from ferry tour boat when the waters are calm. The islands themselves carry the ghosts of past stories in abandoned places such as the schoolhouse on Sand Island once attended by fishermen's children, or in Stockton Island's silent brownstone quarry, or the earthy cabins of the historical fish camp on Manitou Island. All are empty now and slowly returning to the earth. 

Historical Fish Camp o Manitou Island

There are six lighthouses among the Apostle Islands. All six are registered on the National Register of Historic Places. Devil's Island Light - Image by Mike Goad from Pixabay

These "Jewels of Lake Superior" number not twelve apostles, as in the Biblical sense, but twenty-two, and they span 280 square miles. They're mostly sandstone, covered in forests. Over the centuries the islands have been home to European explorers, Native Americans, lighthouse keepers, fishermen, farmers, quarrymen, and loggers. Nowadays, only one of the islands is inhabited, and it is not included in national park status with the rest. Yet Madeline Island, the largest among the islands, is filled with history and pristine beauty. The next several images are a few of Madeline's views taken by my son's wife during their family day trip last summer. Check out the clear blue water. Great swimming, but it's much colder than you'd imagine. 

I love all the rock shelves!

And the flat-topped boulders!

Hello, Quinn and Everly! (I have to give a special shout-out, because today's his birthday.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, QUINN!

Brr! But I just want to jump right in! (And I have.)

On the southern tip of Madeline Island is a little known cemetery where Michel Cadotte, the area's most established trader is buried. Nearby, where a fort of the French and Indian war stood previously, he had established one of the premier trading posts of the region in the early 19th century. He and his family became well known in the fur trade. His wife Madeline, for whom the island is named, was born Equaysay, an Ojibwe princess, and raised on Wisconsin's nearby shores.

The sea caves prominent on the island shores and along Wisconsin's mainland.

Image by David Hamilton from Pixabay

Tourists and locals enjoy visiting the caves by kayak. In the winter, ice formations develop in the sea caves. During the winter of 2014, more than 95% of Lake Superior froze over--a nearly unheard of amount. The ice was 50 inches thick in some places. But that winter the caves were so amazing and accessible that 138,000 people trekked along the frozen shoreline to visit them. Many years the ice isn't safe enough for such a visit. My friend Julie Kramer made the journey and gives us great perspective with this shot.

Local friend and historian Dara Fillmore took these fabulous shots during her trek to the ice caves:

I love the juxtaposition of the ice and the sandstone layers.

What a view! Remember, the floor is ice, not rock!

Shh! Don't wake the abominable!

Stalactites...Icy Teeth!

For several months now on Colonial Quills, I've been sharing about the history and beautiful vistas of this region. My novel Song for the Hunter, releasing next January, is set mainly on Madeline Island during Michel Cadotte's reign as fur trader. Readers will become acquainted with the forests, rock ledges, and the historical trading post on Madeline Island. 

If visiting this beautiful setting appeals to you, you can reach the island by ferry. You'll find a small but wonderful museum there, campgrounds, beaches, hiking trails, and a couple places to eat and stay. I hope to go back there this summer. If I do, I'll bring back some more photos to share of these historical locations.

Bayfield Harbor and the Madeline Island Ferry

Have you ever visited the Apostle Islands? 

Find the party here: Journeying with Jenny

 

Join 13 authors at this event! I'll be hosting the April 11th, Noon-1:00 pm slot, Central Time (1pm-2pm Eastern). Besides sharing a few things about The Love Coward, I'll be hosting a couple of giveaways, and party-goers will be the first ones in on a cover reveal for a new Barbour romance compilation coming out next February!

Blessings~

Naomi Musch

https://naomimusch.com/

Marriage Á La Façon Du Pays -- the Custom of the Country -- and One Such Famous Union

Since February is the month when we turn to thoughts of love and romance, could there be a more appropriate time to discuss a well-established practice of the fur traders in the American wilderness? I'm talking about marriage à la façon du pays--or in English terms, marriage "in the custom of the country". Those of us who indulge in reading or writing historical, romantic fiction are well-tuned to novels featuring a marriage of convenience, but those canny trappers and traders of old took their convenience to a whole 'nother level, and it was even more common than you might imagine.

Marriage à la façon du pays was the practice of European fur traders entering into common law marriages with native women. The marriages, though not taken lightly, didn't usually involve a great deal of ceremony, merely the offering of goods to the bride's family of whatever they seemed most desirous (and almost always included rum). If the trade seemed favorable to all, the bride would go with the trader. If she was to dwell with him at a fort, she would also be given European clothing to wear.

An entire population explosion was the result of these unions, establishing a culture of blended Indigenous with mostly French or Scottish known as the Métis. (See my post on them.) But, about the marriages...

The Trapper's Bride 1858-1859, by Alfred Jacob Miller

Men were not at first allowed by the fur companies like the North West Company and later the Hudson Bay Company to take wives with them into the upper country, hence many men took up with indigenous women instead. This was encouraged by the NWC. Not so much by the HBC, though economic and social pressures soon caused the rules to bend. Indigenous woman were a huge asset to the fur trade, and company partners knew it. Such unions with traders worked much the same way international unions have worked since the days of King David to secure mutual trade relations and establish aid.

Without these women, many early traders might not have survived their forays into the wilderness, what with the natives' understanding of the available food sources, hunting and trapping knowledge, and relations with other tribes in the area. In return, the families of these brides hoped that such unions would provide generously from the trader's wares, as well as secure their own standing among these new Europeans. All in all, the idea of mutual aid whenever necessary was appealing to both sides.

The native wives did a lot of the work around the trading posts too. From lacing snowshoes to making pemmican, from drying meat to patching clothing, their usefulness and productivity was invaluable. Many products of the fur trade came directly at the hands of women who gathered wild rice, harvested maple syrup and refined it to sugar, wove mats and tanned hides.

Then there were the more carnal reasons for the union. Winters were long and lonely in the the wilderness. Many men found great pleasure and comfort in establishing homes and families far from the reaches of Montreal, Quebec, and the American colonies.

The unfortunate aspect in all of this is that the marriages were not considered legal by European standards. Even though the couples might have lived lives of total commitment toward one another, they weren't acknowledged as real marriages by European standards. On top of this, it wasn't entirely unusual for these women and their children to be cut adrift when the trader retired and decided to return to the east. They could take their native wives with them, but sometimes the women and children might be sent back to their families or even offered to a new trader coming into the region. Others though, built on their early foundations and continued to love and care for one another into old age.

One such famous fur trade family were Michel and Equaysayway (or Ikwese) Cadotte. The Cadotte's were fur trade royalty in the Lake Superior region. Their influence stretched from present-day northern Wisconsin, down to the Chippewa River valley, and west into present-day Minnesota as far as Fond du Lac and Red Lake. Their most prominent fur trade post, and the one where Michel Cadotte's family eventually settled and lived was at La Point on Madeline Island, the predominant island among Lake Superior's Apostle Islands (though that island is not included as part of the National Lakeshore as much of it is privately owned). In fact, Equasayway was born near that place. Her father White Crane was an important hereditary chief of the Ojibwe who called the island and area around it home. After Equaysayway was baptized with the new name Madeleine, White Crane commanded that the island, formerly called Mooningwanekaaning (home of the golden-breasted woodpecker) and also called Michel's Island, be renamed in her honor, and so it was. She really was royalty!

And in a sense, so was Michel. Having married the Ojibwe princess, his line established heredity. Also, his grandfather Jean Baptiste Sr. was one of the first fur traders to establish in the Lake Superior region, and his father continued the family business with the companionship of his common law wife, Owaazsii who was also said to be of high status among her Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) clan. After being sent to Montreal for a Catholic education, Michel and his brother Jean Baptiste carried on the trade, and with them it flourished and grew. 

Historical marker located along Hwy. 13 shoreline between Washburn and Bayfield, Wisconsin

Everyone came to the islands to trade with Gitchimichene, or Great Michel, as he was called. There, he and Madeleine ran a farm and raised a large family. Two of their sons-in-law also became well-known. 

It is said that Michel and Madeleine were not married in the church until 1830, some forty years after they'd been married in the Ojibwe custom. Why then? First of all, the record shows that when their children were born, Michel took them to Mackinac Island to be baptized in the Catholic church. He and Madeleine could have married in the European fashion on any of those occasions, but they did not. They did, however, travel there in their sixties to have their marriage made record. This was probably less for romantic reasons than practical.

Historians suggest that changing world circumstances might have been the strongest influence to come into play. European and American court cases and land treaties were not favorable toward those whose marriages were formed à la façon du pays. A new territorial judge, James Doty, presiding in what would become present-day Green Bay, pronounced that these marriages were not legal. He held one of the first grand juries, wherein thirty-six men in Green Bay were indicted on charges of fornication and two more on adultery. Most of them, to avoid a fine, married their common law wives in the duly authorized fashion. 

At the same time, more protestant missionaries were coming to the region and gaining influence where Catholicism had long been established. It was only six months after a visit from protestant missionary Jedidiah Stevens, who was unable to convert them, that Michel and Madeleine were married in the Catholic church. Though no one can say for sure, it's possible that Michel and Madeleine saw the handwriting on the wall as to these coming changes across the country, and how they could affect their business and their family. Perhaps even their adult children had some influence in this regard, as the "legitimizing" of their marriage could affect all their descendants. Whatever their reasons, it is true that Michel and Madeleine established a life-long relationship begun in the custom of the country.

My novel Mist O'er the Voyageur refers to these marriage customs, and the sequel, Song for the Hunter, releasing in January 2022, is set on Madeline Island at the time Michel Cadotte was the fur trader there. Michel and Madeleine both play a large role in the story as well, though of course in a largely fictionalized fashion. Still, I try to keep as true as the historical record allows to life there at the time. I hope you'll consider adding both books to your TBR list. 

Also, in March, my newsletter subscribers are receiving a free novelette that takes place between the two books. The Long-Awaited Spring is an extended epilogue to Mist O'er the Voyageur and a prologue to Song for the Hunter. Sign up for my newsletter on my website, if you'd like to receive the March free read.

Happy Valentine's Month! Historically Yours,

Naomi

https://naomimusch.com/