Thanks for checking out the webpage and the now published blog! Writing this thing has been on the to-do list along with, you know, making things to sell! Jumping the hoops of incorporation, tax stuff, finding a winter HQ, actually learning HOW to make some of this stuff, networking, etc. has been a challenge in and of itself. It’s actually gotten to the point where I have a three-tiered, colored to-do list broken into this week, next week, and someday when I have the time. It seems that when one thing vanishes, five more appear. 😳
So with the excuses out of the way and the rain steadily falling outside the cabin, the fire crackling in the woodstove, and the dog sleeping peacefully, let’s get started.
What’s in a name?
I had a hard time deciding if I should start with the logo or the name, but the name won the coin toss. We are Voyageur’s Wilderness Company, Voyageurs Wilderness Limited Company or Voyageurs Wilderness Company LLC, and finally VWC for short. Why did we choose this for a name? Let’s break it down.
Voyageurs (Not Voyagers) is french for travelers. This fits us; we are at heart travelers.
Over the past five years, we have traveled across North America from Deadhorse, Alaska, to Fairbanks across to Tuktoyatuk, on the Arctic Ocean, circled the Great Lakes, swam in Hudson Bay, traveled along the coast of Labrador, and circled Newfoundland. We’ve driven across the dunes of the Outer Banks and, a bit further south, let the waves of the gulf splash over our feet. We’ve crossed into Mexico over the Rio Grande and been down as far as Peru as well as over to the UK.
We travel and still love to. It is and will forever be in our blood.
So, why didn’t we choose the Expeditionary Wilderness Company or Travelers?
That’s simple. We have Acadian Metis and Mi’Kmac blood with direct lines to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. Our heritage is French Canadian, and the travelers of the fur trade era were Voyageurs.
We are also avid outdoors folk and love the canoe’s silence, the vessel of choice for many early travelers of Canada. Finally, the Voyagers were explorers of the north, the land that still calls to us the most after all the travel we’ve done.
Our ancestral blood is in the north, and it’s where our hearts lie.
While we understand the spelling is challenging and our business advisor is against it 😆, we feel the name suits us.
Now that the Voyageurs moniker is defined, what about the Wilderness Company and VWC?
We have always been amazed and in awe of the early trading companies like the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company. Seeing the HBC flag on the north’s trading posts is a curious and amazing experience and a feeling we wanted to recreate whenever we stamp our logo or say our name. Ultimately, we hope to emulate the HBC’s breadth and be a distributor for great products, training, and outfitting in the areas we serve.
Ironically in this quest for finding a name and wishing to emulate the HBC, we looked at the Penobscot Bay Company, the Boston Bay Company, the Georges Bay Company. Those are cool names too!
But all of those placed us in one location, and this was not something we really wanted to do. While we are geographically located and legally established in Vermont, we also operate out of Maine and have ambitions to relocate into Canada or Minnesota. Conveniently, these are all territories that the Voyageurs traveled. That sort of works out!
So, there you have it; the meaning behind our name: Voyageurs Wilderness Company. 😀
