Sixteen Years in the Indian Country: an Overview

In 1800, Daniel's first assignment was as a clerk on the "voyageur's highway" from Montreal to Grand Portage, and thence to Fort Alexandria, Saskatchewan. He worked a total of five years in the Swan River Department, as central Saskatchewan was then known, with sojourns (assignments, or tours of duty) at Fort Alexandria, Bird Mountain, and Lac la Pêche.

From 1805 to 1807, Daniel worked on the Saskatchewan River at New Fort, South Branch House, and Cumberland House. On October 10, 1805, he was introduced to the young woman who would become his wife. At the tender age of 14, Lisette was, according to Daniel's journal, "a fair Partner of a mild disposition and even-tempered." Nothing is known of her origin or that of her tribe, and she was long thought to be a Snake Indian from the Kootenays. "Snare" has long been considered a misspelling in Harmon's original journal; recent scholars have speculated that the "Snare" people do exist, and are now the Secwepemec band of the North Thompson River, BC, but in 1997, Secwepemec band leaders were unable to confirm this.

In 1807 and 1808, Daniel and Lisette worked in the Nipigon District, from Fort William to Sturgeon Lake and Dunvegan forts. Their first son George was born at Sturgeon Lake on December 4, 1807; his parents would enjoy him for a mere four years. The family was posted to the Athabasca District in 1808, traveling from Dunvegan to Stuarts Lake until 1810. Twin sons were born prematurely on February 15, 1810; they lived only a few days, dying on February 22 and 24. Two more infants died during this period, unmentioned in the journal; we know of their existence only because records show Lisette as having borne a total of fourteen children.

1810: Rocky Mountain District

A great remove to New Caledonia in 1810 took the Harmons into the Rocky Mountain region for a decade. Three sojourns at Stuarts Lake led to Daniel's posting as factor at a new fort at Fraser's Lake, British Columbia, just across the continental divide. Fraser Lake fort was founded by Daniel's fellow Bennington native Simon Fraser , the North West Company adventurer famed for his discovery and descent of the Fraser River to Vancouver.

One of Fraser's companions, J.N. Quesnel (founder of Quesnel, BC), offered to take young George Harmon back to his Vermont relatives to attend school. This was the custom of the country during the fur trade era; the daughters were reared as natives with their mothers, while the sons were sent to white schools and families to be groomed for futures in the fur trade.
"No consideration could induce me to send him down, especially while he is so young, excepting the thought that he will soon be under the fostering care of my kind relations, who will be able to educate him much better than it would be possible for me to do in this savage country. As I do that which I apprehend will be or the benefit of my little son, so I earnestly pray that God will generously protect him in his absence from me."

Four-year-old George bid farewell to his parents on April 22, 1811 and embarked on his cross-continental canoe trip. It would take four more years for the letter to reach Daniel that informed him that while George had made the epic journey safely, the eldest Harmon son had died of scarlet fever in Vergennes, Vermont, on March 18, 1813.

Three days after George's departure, Mary Patience (known as Polly) Harmon was born on April 25, 1811. Polly would become very important to her father, who taught her to read in English (though "with their mother I more regularly employ the French"), and was the only one of the Harmon children old enough to remember their years in the Indian Country after their return to Vermont.

Sarah (Sally) was born at Fraser Lake on February 10, 1817, the last of the Harmon children (save John) to be born in the Northwest.

Spirit of the Voyageur

The voyageurs are the heroes of their own tales. The short, stocky, tireless men are famous as the cowboys of the canoe country. According to legend, they have six wives and five running dogs, they can carry hundreds of pounds at a dogtrot, and they paddle three-ton canoes upstream. They can eat their weight in pemmican and drink a canoeful of rum apiece. Naturally, their exploits are larger than life. They are as large as their land.

Like other women of her era, Lisette is barely visible in "historic" accounts. Harmon's journal mentions her four times in sixteen years, and never by name. However, he writes in his appendix that it is a mark of respect among the Cree not to speak the name of a person under discussion, but to refer to them indirectly.

In the world of a man whose highest devotion was to family and community, there can be no higher state than the one Daniel accorded Lisette. She was "my cherished companion and the mother of my children." Yet beyond her role as wife and mother, Lisette's story brings to life a less stereotyped and much richer account of the multicultural height of fur trade society, at a time when most of the boundaries of North America were still being drawn. Lisette Duval was a real voyageur.

The voyageur symbolizes Canada and rivers with adventure, travel, exploration and discovery. Lisette's life spanned the continent from the Kootenays to Quebec. The rivers of the voyageur know no boundaries, and her journeys crossed the boundary waters again and again; her parentage, her marriage, and her family crossed boundaries of language, race and politics. The voyageur's symbol is the canoe, and like her craft, Lisette was born from native roots and raised to European commerce.

Voyageurs embody independence, and trade. Women of New France kept their names, owned property, and traded vigorously as North America's first businesswomen. Many a "Madame la Bourgeoise" interpreted, traded and managed her husband's accounts at the post during his extended field trips.

Voyageurs traded in needles, beads, pots and cloth used by native women, and like so many country wives, Lisette was skilled in the preparation of food, clothing and shelter that made liaisons with native women "the custom of the country." As the Métis children of native women and white trappers and traders, these women and thousands like them were literally daughters of the country: les femmes du pays.