Update 8: Je suis devenu voyageur
- John Vanek
- Aug 13
- 10 min read
What an eventful month it’s been!
One week I was a grant writer, the next I found myself consoling staff at the Minnesota Historical Society. Then I became Grand Marshal in a city festival only to transform once again into a voyageur at a fur-trade rendezvous. Along the way, I made more fascinating discoveries.
Legacy Grant Application
On July 17, the Little Canada Historical Society submitted an application for a major Minnesota Legacy grant to support the project next year. Technically, they submitted a pre-application. This week, grant reviewers should send feedback to all applicants. I will help LCHS revise things and then they will then submit the improved, final application by September 12.
After I finish up research at the end of 2025—supported mostly by generous donations from people like you—the grant (we hope and anticipate) will provide the equivalent of a professional salary while I write the rest of the manuscript in 2026.
Canadian Days Grand Marshal
For a city of 11,000 people, Little Canada puts on an incredible city festival. Called Canadian Days, the festival includes almost every you can imagine: bingo, fireworks, a 5k race, a parade, carnival rides, a petting zoo, volleyball and softball tournaments, a corn feed, a pancake breakfast, food trucks, a medallion hunt, prize drawings, live music, merch, and more.
This year, I had the honor to be Grand Marshal of the Canadian Days parade! Alongside a dozen other Gervais descendants including my mom, uncle, and kids, I rode down Little Canada Road in a trolley, waving a Canadian flag and throwing candy to excited families sitting curbside. The streets were lined with alternating U.S. and Canadian flags.
The Canadian Days organizers and the mayor of Little Canada presented me with a certificate for the occasion, and I got to make a brief speech about the book project. Even though I have not yet published or even written the book, news about my research has already generated significant interest around town, brought new artifacts into the historical society's collections, and raised the level of awareness about Little Canada’s fascinating history.
LCHS had a booth at the festival, and I spent most of the weekend there. We had some great conversations with residents and visitors about local history and the book project. I was especially excited to share my work with Beth Richardson, the Canadian Consul General for the Upper Midwest, who spent an hour with us on Saturday morning.
Lastly, LCHS holds a 50/50 fundraising raffle each year at Canadian Days. This year, I won! Not directly—that would have been an obvious conflict of interest. But the winner of the public half of the money was an LCHS supporter who chose to donate her winnings to the project in exchange for the promise of a signed copy of the book when it is published. I was more than happy to oblige.
Back row: me, Little Canada Mayor Tom Fischer, LCHS President Jon Tremblay, LCHS Executive Director Curt Loschy. Front row: LCHS Treasurer Bob Dietrick and Beth Richardson, Consul General of Canada in Minneapolis.
Interpreter at the Grand Portage Rendezvous
Four days after the parade, I was off on another adventure: my first-ever rendezvous. Thanks to the great folks at La Compagnie des Hivernants de la Riviere Saint Pierre, I got to play voyageur at the Grand Portage Rendezvous on the shores of Lake Superior. Our camp was set up astride the famous grand portage just outside the post gates.
I walked and slept in the very places Genevieve’s father once did. In fact, Jean-Baptiste Laurence was at Grand Portage in 1802 for the last great North West Company rendezvous held there. Now, I volunteered as a costumed interpreter to teach visitors about the important history that happened at Grand Portage: global movements of goods and people, acts of economic and cultural exchange, and the distinctive classes and cultures of people who worked in the fur trade.
On Friday morning, we took a 30-foot canoe out onto Lake Superior. After paddling around Hat Point, we stopped to see the famous “Witch Tree” or “Little Spirit Cedar Tree” (Manidoo-giizhikens). This stunted, weather-worn cedar tree, its trunk twisting up from a base of lichen-covered volcanic rocks with no soil in sight, has withstood thousands of Lake Superior storms in its long lifetime. It was already a mature tree in 1731, when the French trader La Verendrye made note of its unusual shape and location in his journal. The tree is probably 400 years old if not more.
The Spirit Tree is a famous North Shore landmark, but it’s somewhat hard to access. Visiting the tree by land requires permission from the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, who honor and protect it. I had wanted to see it ever since I was a boy, when I saw photos of it in art galleries in Duluth and Grand Marais. Now, by becoming a voyageur and paddling my way out, I finally had the chance to capture my own pictures of this magical symbol of perseverance and survival.
My pictures (except one taken by a fellow reenactor) are below. To see professional photographs from the redezvous, check out the photo album by Alan Nyiri. I'm in the red shirt and straw hat near the back of the long canoe Nyiri photographed four or five times.
Recent Research Discoveries
“The Whore of Canada”
When I discovered that Genevieve’s sister got divorced in Switzerland in 1834, my wife asked whether it was really worth the money to pay someone to photograph the nearly 300 pages of divorce proceedings. After all, for my core story, the relevance of her sister ends abruptly in the summer of 1824.
I decided to hire a researcher to make copies in hopes that somewhere in those many pages I would find additional information about the relationship stretching back to its very beginning in Red River, back to when it was relevant to Genevieve. I have not been disappointed!
The divorce was a bitter, knock-down, drag-out, he-said, she-said, Jerry Springer-style case that lasted for months. The couple rehashed their relationship from the very start and fought procedural battles over whether what happened at Red River could be used as evidence. Details about what happened at Red River—an adulterous affair that ended with an abortion—are confirmed, but placed in a new context. The act of adultery wasn’t just a matter of sexual attraction, impulse, or seduction. It may have been all of those things, but it occurred under the assumption that the husband, who was in Europe, had forever abandoned his wife at Red River.
Historical records like this are exceedingly rare. The divorce proceedings contain so many personal details that one starts to get a sense for who these people actually were. The record confirms my inference that Genevieve’s sister was a stunningly beautiful young woman. One older male witness reported being “as struck by her beauty as by her negligee” when her husband had unexpectedly brought this gentleman into her chambers while she was still getting dressed. Though the man caught only a brief glimpse of her body, the sight of her beauty lodged permanently in his memory, enough that he could clearly recall it years later in court.
Additionally, before reading the divorce case, I knew the husband had conceived a daughter with an Indigenous woman in 1817, when he was in the area with Lord Selkirk. We know about it because the Catholic priests wrote about their interest in making sure the (Protestant) husband’s return to the colony in 1818 did not affect the woman’s place at the Catholic mission school. I had assumed, wrongly, that the husband left both the woman and the girl behind in North America after marrying Genevieve’s sister and then leaving in 1824. The divorce clarifies that he brought the girl to Switzerland. Genevieve’s sister became a loving stepmother to her, and actually grew quite close to the girl, whose name, we learn, was Marguerite. Unfortunately, Marguerite was not allowed to go to school because in the husband’s paranoia about the wife’s supposed infidelities, he tasked Marguerite with keeping an eye on the wife’s behavior whenever he left the house.
And I haven’t even mentioned:
accusations of adultery against the wife with an equestrian circus performer—a young stud named Joseph the Comedian
accusations of adultery against the husband with a servant girl (which he says was a setup by the wife)
moment-by-moment details of physical violence between the spouses, including her chasing him with a hunting knife and him knocking her out with a square punch to the face
the stabbing of a Canton Councilor by the husband with a spear-tipped umbrella for his supposed role in an affair with the wife
accusations that, in front of the children, the husband declared all the children bastards and named their supposed fathers, after which the children began to play-act who their "real daddies" were
a girl at the city fair accosting the wife by calling her “the Whore of Canada”
accusations of secret codes used by the wife to inform her adulterous lovers when the husband was away
spies hired by the paranoid husband to watch the wife
shit-posting at the wife's expense in the market market square: "Mare from Canada for sale. For a price, inquire with [adulterous lover]."
accusations by the wife of an "orgy" of drinking with stolen alcohol (and possibly more) against a servant girl, whom the husband then turns to be his star witness in the divorce
For this book, I will have to summarize most of these scandalous proceedings into a brief postscript to the events at Red River. But after I finish this project, I plan to write a detailed article or short book about Genevieve’s sister herself.
Minnesota Historical Society Research
With international research trips now behind me, I have had more time to look at records at the Minnesota Historical Society. In the past two weeks, I’ve delved into the papers of J. Fletcher Williams, an early St. Paul booster, newspaper editor, and historian. During the 1860s and 1870s, Williams interviewed many of the city’s old-timers. A lot of his research ended up in his 1876 book A History of the City of St. Paul to 1875, but some details never made it into the manuscript or were edited out under pressure from his publisher.
Williams’s notes from his interviews with Genevieve, Alphonse, and Pierre Gervais do not survive. However, interviews, statements, and biographical sketches of people like Vetal Guerin, James Rueben Clewett, and Edmund Brissette provide important insights into mobility within the French river world of the 1830s, historical figures like Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant and Edward Phelan, and daily life in St. Paul in the 1840s. The Williams papers are incredibly valuable for sorting out who was doing what, where, and when, during the earliest years of St. Paul history, before there was a newspaper closer than Madison, Wisconsin.
War of 1812
Just a few days I ago, I finally received digital copies of the War of 1812 records I had hoped to review in person in the LAC reading room in Ottawa in June. I have not yet had a chance to read them, but I’m excited to dive in. I am counting on this set of correspondence to put Benjamin’s service in the select embodied militia into context, both within the greater war and relative to the experiences of other soldiers.
Minnesota Historical Society Layoffs
If you haven’t heard, the Minnesota Historical Society recently announced major layoffs. At the end of August, thirty-six employees will lose their jobs and three historic sites will be shuttered.
Most relevant to this project, the historical society library in St. Paul will bear the brunt of the cuts. The Gale Family Library, which already is only open to the public for six hours per day on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, will no longer have any public hours. It will be moving to an appointment-only scheduling model. Whether researchers will actually be able to get appointments waits to be seen.
Recently, when I have been there for research, the Weyerhaeuser research room has been close to capacity, especially on Thursdays. Whatever staff have survived the cuts will almost certainly not be able to handle the same volume of researchers. While they are still figuring out what it will look like come September, I am already preparing for it to take longer to get materials from the stacks to the reading room and possibly for conflict between researchers over appointment slots.
I hope to set up one if not two standing all-day appointments each week. In the Legacy grant application, we promised the MNHS grants office that I would complete the research by the end of 2025. A lot of what I have left to review is in the historical society library in St. Paul. If I am unable to go as often as I need to, it may threaten current project schedule. In short, without a healthy state historical society, I can't do my work.
In addition, the Snake River Fur Post near Pine City—whence I rented the canvas tent I took to Grand Portage—will be closing at the end of the month. I strongly encourage you to drive up for a visit before it does.
MNHS was founded in 1849. I don't know the whole history of the organization, but it has never been in worse shape in my lifetime. Like art, the work of history is often not profitable. It's not meant to be. When a city or state has a thriving scene for arts and culture (including history and literature), this largely reflects the values of a community that has set money aside to support those things. It is a collective choice to let institutions like MNHS falter.
If you care about Minnesota history, if you care about providing Minnesotans with access to archives and historic sites, please write or call your state legislators to demand more funding. These cuts aren’t “trimming fat” from an overstuffed government organization; they are directly undercutting core functions at the heart of the historical society’s mission. Closing historic sites and effectively closing the research library represent a betrayal of all the investments made by previous generations to create these things and a betrayal to future generations by greatly reducing access to historical information.
Fundraising
Of course, while all this is happening, LCHS continues to raise funds to help offset research expenses and support my time and labor in 2025. We are still behind the relatively modest goal we set for 2025. Please consider donating.
What’s Next
The Grand Portage Rendezvous was the last “research trip” I planned for this year that would take me outside the Twin Cities metro area and/or require my time over a weekend. Winnipeg, St. Louis, Ottawa, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Berthierville, Louiseville, Sainte-Geneviéve-de-Batiscan, Canadian Days, and Grand Portage are all in the rearview mirror.
I plan to spend the rest of the year processing, transcribing, translating, and taking notes on all the records I collected in the first seven months, as well as finishing my research at MNHS (whatever that looks like). I also have more books to read and incorporate into my notes. While this may sound less exciting, it is critical work so that when 2026 rolls around, I can transition seamlessly into the next phase. My goal for next year is to focus mostly on the art of writing, with only an occasional need to revisit this or that research topic.
À la prochaine !
*Cover photo by Alan Nyiri, used with permission.
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