As I have experienced so painfully in the last few days, eastern North America, especially her northern reaches, is a fickle mistress when it comes to the weather. Here in sunny southeastern Michigan we have been blessed by unseasonably warm weather with highs in the upper seventies and lower eighties for the last two and a half weeks... except for a brief night in which we were cursed with a sharp drop to 29 degrees! My native plants handled everything fine, as well they should, but the cultivated plants shriveled in horror.
The first born of the continent knew this sort of weather for centuries before Europeans ever heard of these shores, and for the most part they did not cultivate much. Game was plentiful, especially among the grassland areas, where it was also very accessible. Further north, into boreal country, game was usually the only option on the table; crops were unreliable and restricted to a mere few months of growth to be of any lasting value. Winter tends to be a dominant presence from September to even early June north of Lake Superior. In the shelter and moderate climate of the Great Lakes area, however, corn, tobacco, tomatoes, and even "wild" rice, as well as berries and squash were cultivated. From New Jersey southwards along the coast, the growers once again found a water-moderated climate and spent far more time growing than hunting. Further north, and again back along the lakes, some fished as a way of life.
Still, the conditions of life did not mean that tastes were forced into particular patterns. The first born traded among themselves for the fruits of the earth and hooves. The relatively short Ottawa River allowed for trade between much of the continent. How?
The Ottawa is remarkably well connected. First and foremost, it provides a wonderful short cut to the Upper Great Lakes, by over 500 miles in fact. While hardly a smooth river like much of the waterways further south, the Ottawa was a simple matter to traverse and decidedly easier to serve as a paddle and carry river than the Niagara. The Ottawa also had the benefit of being in land that a powerful, yet politically open people controlled. The Algonquins and Nippissings were Moose and Caribou hunters, and the supplemented their diet with freshwater fish and berries in the spring and summer. They were not as much into settlement and land control as the Iroquois/Haudenosaunee were who lived south of them, and perhaps it was their status as gatekeepers of the river that kept other roaming peoples, like the Ojibway and Cree, generally off their turf. For the most part, a trip up or down the Ottawa was a safe venture. A trip on the Great Lakes could be met by many encounters with war canoes or, much worse, storms that rival anything encountered on the open ocean.
This sort of thing appealed to the French, who unlike the Spanish and English, were initially more interested in exploring and trading across the land rather than settling it. Further south, even if they could dislodge the English presence, the Appalachians and a lack of penetrating rivers stood in the way, as well as various tribes who were already satisfied with their existence and did not find foreign trade as exciting as more northern peoples did. The other option, which the French did take up at the end of their first century on the continent, was to use the Mississippi to make their way into the land. The problem with that was that the Spanish were too close for comfort, and the distance to get to the center of the continent was much greater from Louisiana than it was from the huge estuary of the St. Lawrence. The Ottawa also provided an adjacent access to the far north, as its headwaters are mere miles from the Hudsonian drainages.
So what sort of stuff went up and down the river? For the French, a lot of fur. For the Algonquins?
-Saltwater species for food and decoration from the Atlantic.
-Exotic furs from the far north, including Polar Bear and Seal pelts and hides.
-Freshwater species for food from the Great Lakes.
-Produce from the agricultural heartland of southern Ontario, Michigan, northern Ohio, and western New York.
-Copper from Michigan.
-Buffalo and Elk from the central grasslands.
-Salmon from as far as the west coast and everywhere else. Salmon meant a lot back then!
-Pottery and wares from as far away as the Pubeloan peoples of New Mexico, by way of connecting trade through the Mississippi.
In short, a few hundred miles of well-placed, easy water opened an entire continent and served as a grand marketplace. So how about more of those rivers? Maybe the Mississippi?
