Pays d’en haut

The habitants of New France called the vast territories west of Montreal, inhabited mostly by Indigenous people, the “pays d’en haut.” Very old ties, dating from Samuel de Champlain’s first explorations, linked the Huron (Wendat) and the French. In a colony whose existence and growth depended principally upon the fur trade, the Huron were precious allies. From the time of their earliest contacts with the French, the Huron realized that they were primarily interested in obtaining furs. Immediately they increased their trade. Taking advantage of their situation, which was economically and geographically privileged, the Huron played the role of middlemen between populations with different kinds of economies. They accumulated in their villages huge quantities of furs bought from the nomadic hunters of the pays d’en haut – the regions of Lake Nipissing, Lake Timiskaming, the Ottawa and St. Maurice rivers, and even the Hudson Bay territories. In return they offered these hunters corn, flour, tobacco, pumpkins, and nets, which they obtained from their own district or from the nations to the south and the west. The Huron thus became the great traders of the period.