No. 8739
Joseph La France
Joseph La France was a Metis fur trader in Canada, and an explorer of the inland route from Montreal to Hudson Bay.
He was born to a French fur trader and an Ojibwa woman in the Michilimackinac area, and from his earliest days was educated on workings of fur trade. He also received some more formal education in Quebec. Until 1732 La France was working as a fur trader in the Michilimackinac area, and then he he travelled down the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Missouri River.
Around 1736 La France went to Montreal seeking a license to trade, which was refused to him on the grounds that he had been selling brandy to the Indians. Since there was danger for him to be arrested by the French as an unlicensed trader, La France determined to deal instead with the English on Hudson Bay. In 1739 La France followed the Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods, Winnipeg River route to Lac Ouinipigon (Lake Winnipeg). He spent the winter of 1740–41 with the Crees of the Lac Ouinipigon area and that of 1741–42 in the region of Lac des Prairies (lakes Manitoba and Winnipegosis) and the lower Paskoya (Saskatchewan) River. By way of the Hayes River, he reached York Factory on Hudson Bay in June 1742 with a large band of Indians and a cargo of furs.
Because the Hudson's Bay Company could not shelter French traders, La France was sent to England where he met Arthur Dobbs in London who was crusading against the HBC monopoly of the fur trade and their apparent reluctance to open up the northwest with interior forts. Based on La France’s information Dobbs made crude maps and wrote much information concerning the geography and demographics of the region.
La France advised the HBC to meet the growing French competition in the west by establishing posts in the interior and lowering the standard of trade, but the company ignored his advice at the time. However, from the 1750s, the HBC started to encourage the Indians to bring their furs down to the bay, and in 1774 it built Cumberland House (Sask.), the first of many posts deep in the western interior.