"Voyageur", the French word for traveler, refers to the contracted employees who worked as canoe paddlers, bundle carriers, and general laborers for fur trading firms from the 1690s until the 1850s. This is why voyageurs were also known as "engagés", a loose French expression translated as "employees". The voyageurs, who were under the direction of a clerk (commis), were distinguished from "freemen", in other words, people who trapped and traded furs on their own account without being bound by a contract. Though it is true that the majority of voyageurs were French-Canadian, there were those who were English, German, and Iroquois
