"Malhoit...built a fort and waged a vigorous warfare with other traders...few fur traders had more adventures." - The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company (2020)
Malhoit...was a seasoned trader, but feared his...inability 'to cope with sometimes 40 or 50 savages under the influence of liquor and inclined to evil deeds.'" - From Exploration to Statehood: History of Wisconsin (2013)
"Malhiot's journal offers fascinating reading." - River Life: The Natural and Cultural History of a Northern River (2001)
"François Victor Malhiot...became an articled clerk to the North West Fur company...his journal published in the Wisconsin Historical Collections recounts experiences...married an Indian woman...settling at Contreceacoueur...and lived there until his deat in 1840." -Wausau (Wisconsin) Daily Herald, Sept. 8, 1931
What was life in Wisconsin like in 1803 for the first white pioneers in the region?
In 1911, the Historical Society of Wisconsin shed some light on life in early Wisconsin by publishing the journal of fur trader François Victor Malhiot (1776-1840) in a short 60-page work titled "A Wisconsin Fur-Trader's Journal."
Francois Victor Malhiot born in 1776, was 15 when he became an articled clerk to the North West Fur Company. In 1796 he was appointed to the Upper Red River Department , and in the summer of 1804 he was sent to take charge of the post at Lac du Flambeau.
In 1807 he resigned. He married an Indian woman on August 8, 1800, at the fort at the mouth of the Winnipeg River. On leaving the interior he left her with her own people but took with him his half-breed son, Francois Xavier Ignace. Settling at Contreceacouer he educated his son and lived there until his death in 1840. He was known to his relatives and fiends as Erambert.
Malhiot's Journal shows that two days were spent in canoe journey from Portage (Long) Lake to Lac du Flambeau. The party first made its way by a network of lakes and streams to Turtle Lake, in northwest Vilas County: thence by short portages they reached the Manitowish River; they went eighteen miles down-stream to the Flambeau River, and twenty-four miles to Lac du Flambeau.
Doty, in a letter to Governor Cass, described the route as from the mouth of the Montreal River to Turtle Lake, 'From where there is a portage one-fourth of a mile to a small pond, thence up the outlet of a small lake one-fourth of a mile, from which a portage of three miles is made to the Old Plantation River. This is descended eighteen miles to the entrance of the Flambeau River, which rises in the lake of the same name, and is twenty four miles long."
Malhiot writes of giving a coat to 'le Muffle d'Original' (The Moose's muzzle). He is believed to be the chief known as Mozoboddo sho succeeded his father Keeshkenum, one of the noted Chippewa chiefs said to have been the first settlers at Lac du Flambeau. Keeshkenum was still alive in 1827, but was very old, and died soon thereafter, when Mozoboddo was invested the chieftainship. He in turn died about 1832 and was succeeded by White Crow. Malhiot traded with Indians from or near what is now Langlade County.
