- Date
- 1770
- Eras
- French era
- Concepts
- anishinaabe-odawaagricultureenvironmenthistoriographytoponymyheritage
- Within
- Beaver Island archipelago
Summary
This held English translation of Charlevoix’s account provides three distinct references to the Beaver-island group. On printed page 42, the narrative says that some Outawaies dispersed among the “beaver islands” after the French settlement at the Narrows. On page 47, it says that Cutaways who retired there sowed maize and that the Amikouys had formerly lived on the islands. On page 94, the travel narrative records the author’s 1 August passage past les isles de Castor, or Beaver islands, which seemed to him very well wooded.
Together these passages are useful early written evidence for English and French forms of the group name, a colonial report of Indigenous agriculture and residence, and a traveler’s landscape observation. They remain source-bounded: the volume is an English translation of a French colonial-era account, the ethnonyms and historical claims are Charlevoix’s or his reported sources’ categories, and the 1721 travel context is not the 1770 publication date.
Evidence and limits
The scan’s title page gives the imprint as London, R. and J. Dodsley, 1770. The project therefore records this volume as a 1770 publication even though the underlying voyage and some reported events are earlier. The phrase les isles de Castor is preserved as a historical source form; it is not silently normalized into a modern legal or geographic boundary for the archipelago.
The maize, former-abode, fur-trade, and wooded-landscape statements are not an island-wide census, archaeological result, current ecological inventory, land title, or continuous settlement history. The translation’s “Cutaways” and “Amikouys” should be read alongside Indigenous-authored and community-held sources rather than treated as definitive modern identity terminology.
See also
- Beaver Island
- Beaver Island archipelago
- Bellin Carte des Lacs du Canada, 1744
- Anishinaabe presence in the archipelago
- Historical toponymy and map change
- Historiography
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428 pages, rendered from the held scan.
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Sources
- Held public-domain scan. Page 42 says that after the settlement at the Narrows, some Outawaies dispersed among the beaver islands; p. 47 says that Cutaways who retired there sowed maize and that the Amikouys had formerly abode there; p. 94 records the author's 1 August passage past les isles de Castor, or Beaver islands, which seemed very well wooded. These are the translated authorial and reported categories of a colonial-era account, not modern boundary, title, ecology, or self-identification evidence.
- OCR derivative used for discovery and navigation. Long-s typography and recognition errors are visible; wording and page claims were checked against the held PDF.
- Internet Archive PDF provenance sidecar for Charlevoix, volume II.Records the Internet Archive URL, 2026-07-31 retrieval timestamp, SHA-256 checksum, file size, and public-domain/open-availability note for the held PDF. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
- Internet Archive DjVu provenance sidecar for Charlevoix, volume II.Records the Internet Archive derivative URL and retrieval metadata for the OCR aid; it is not treated as independent evidence. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
Added 2 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Charlevoix, Journal of a Voyage to North-America, volume 2, 1770”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/documents/charlevoix-journal-of-a-voyage-1770-volume-2/, accessed [date], citing Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, *Journal of a Voyage to North-America*, vol. II (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1770), pp. 42, 47, and 94. (and 3 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-02. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Charlevoix, Journal of a Voyage to North-America, volume 2, 1770”RIS for “Charlevoix, Journal of a Voyage to North-America, volume 2, 1770”