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| | Coureur des bois (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12) |
 | | Competition was fierce, and many colonists risked the journey west and north through hostile Iroquois territory from the settlements around Montreal to the pays d'en haut, or "upper country" (the area around the Great Lakes) to seek out Native trappers to trade with. |
 | | Some coureurs de bois became famous, including Étienne Brulé, Louis Joliet, Médard des Groseilliers, Pierre-Esprit Radisson, Jean Nicolet, Guillaume Couture, Jean-Baptiste Chalifoux and Jacques de Noyon. |
 | | For example, they had to be able to carry two 90 pound bundles of fur over portages; more suffered from strangulated hernias than any other injury. |
| www.worlditems.info /en/Coureurs_des_bois.htm (864 words) |
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