- Minnesota is truly blessed with an abundance of giant statues of oversized things.

Big horsey, huge Viking, world's largest hockey stick.

Sometimes feels like a lot, especially when it comes to these guys.

(mellow music) Why does Minnesota need so many enormous statues of voyageurs anyway?

Welcome to "Minnesota Historia."

I'm Hailey, your guide to Minnesota's voyageurs.

We all know what a voyageur is, right?

- Most modern Minnesotans get that all wrong.

- [Hailey] This is Carl Gawboy, author and illustrator of "Fur Trade Nation."

So if anyone in Minnesota knows about voyageurs, it's him.

- [Carl] Their job was to paddle.

They were like truck drivers.

They had to move the goods from one end of the continent to the other.

- [Hailey] That continent was North America.

The goods were furs, and the best furs were beavers.

- Furs became incredibly popular as fashion in Europe.

It was Charles, I think, that wore a beaver hat to parliament.

And after that, everybody wanted a beaver hat.

- Rub with the fur.

There you go.

Pretty soft, isn't it?

Do you guys have anything you wanna buy?

The small knife?

I'd probably do about 10 bucks on that.

- [Customer] I only have $1.

- Do you wanna offer less?

Give me an offer and we'll talk about it.

I'm a loud talker.

That's why they call me Longtails, because I talk a lot.

That's how I got that name.

- [Hailey] There's nothing I love more than a fully committed historical reenactor.

- This is the Lester River Rendezvous, okay?

And this is a reenactment of what a rendezvous would be like back in the 1800s.

- A rendezvous was a gathering in the wilderness where furs and other goods might be traded.

Please note they very rarely featured giant inflatable bouncy slides.

As for the voyageurs, I've read in all my really old dusty history books here that every last one of them was French Canadian.

That's probably true, right?

- Well, the most famous voyageurs, of course, were Quebec French.

- I would be a voyageur.

I'd be a French voyageur.

- But they were just a little small part of the whole fur trade story.

- A lot of the voyageurs were Native American.

Yep.

- Who produced the raw goods?

Well, the Indians did.

Who fed everybody in the fur trade?

The Indians fed everybody.

And then the Indians also were voyageurs too.

But when you look at Frances Anne Hopkins's paintings, everybody in that canoe, right there, holding a paddle are natives.

See, these guys are natives.

And everyone trusts Frances Anne Hopkins paintings as a very legitimate depiction of the voyageurs in their work.

That's Frances Anne Hopkins.

I think that guy with the mustache here, I think he might be French.

- So some books are wrong?

You will not be surprised to learn that big fiberglass statues often get history wrong as well.

- These giant statues outside of Cloquet, Grand Marais, and Two Harbors, they're mixing it up with mountain men.

- Voyageurs and mountain men.

Similar, but different Tinder profiles.

- And then what's with these buckskin shirts?

Have you tried paddling in a buckskin shirt?

My goodness, you'd sweat yourself like crazy.

Voyageurs wore very loose fitting cotton shirts.

- [Hailey] Minnesotans might get some of the basic facts slightly wrong, but we're still crazy for those voyageurs.

Maybe it's something in our DNA.

- When I was growing up in the 1950s in Ely, I wanted to be a trapper 'cause my father kept talking about trapping stories.

In South Dakota and in Montana, all the Indian kids hoped to be cowboys someday.

The Ojibwe kids wanting to be trappers.

- I grew up in Climax, Minnesota, and all the kids there wanted to be somewhere else.

Of course, I'm just joking.

I'd move back to Climax in a heartbeat if only they had some giant fiberglass statues!

And now, "Minnesota Historia" presents "The Top 10 giant Voyageur Statues in Minnesota."

(dramatic music) Nope, that's a Viking.

(dramatic music) That's a sugar beet.

Are we not taking this seriously?

(dramatic music) That's more of a sign than a statue, but I will allow it.

Now, that's a statue.

This big galoot stands in front of the campground in Cloquet.

This little fella is actually one of two voyageur statues in Two Harbors.

This statue would've rated higher, but he seems a little too happy with himself.

And that offends my humble Minnesota sensibilities.

Here are the new kids on the block installed in 2024 in Ely.

This is Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Du Lhut.

In 1679, he was the first European to visit Northeastern Minnesota.

His statue stands in Duluth, which was named after him.

He wasn't so much a voyageur as he was a soldier, explorer, and troublemaker.

He enjoyed long walks on the beach, illegally trading with locals, and, eventually, establishing for trading posts.

He's a delightful scamp with lumpy marshmallow legs.

We're gonna count him.

This is Big Louie in Barnum, and his identical twin Big Vic in Rainier.

These guys take some explaining.

In 1975, Voyageurs National Park was established east of International Falls along the Canadian border.

Some people were not thrilled.

- So there was the idea that eminent domain was going to be used to seize lands from private owners.

- [Hailey] This is Ashley Lavigne, executive director of the Koochiching County Historical Society in International Falls.

- Vic Davis and a couple of his friends, they decided that they were going to create protest pieces against Voyageurs National Park, which ended up being Big Vic.

- [Hailey] Local legend Vic Davis built Big Vic and placed him, in protest, on an island he owned with some other rabble rousers.

- For him, that was a way that he could cause, you know, quote, "good trouble" for the government.

- [Hailey] The National Park Service seized the property.

- The government had told him, you know, "Hey, we've got a lot of money, we'll fight you."

And Vic's response essentially was like, "Cool, so do I.

And also, I'm young, so, like, I can keep doing this for a while."

- [Hailey] So, of course, Vic Davis built another identical statue, Big Louie, and placed it in another spot that was also kind of right in the way of the park.

The National Park Service eventually had both statues removed.

Big Vic was sold to the city of Ranier.

Big Louie was sold to a restaurant in Barnum.

- Was he against Voyageurs National Park?

I would say no.

He wanted respect for the people.

- Pierre, the pantsless voyageur, rates this high for two reasons.

His left thigh and his right thigh.

They're like thirst traps for mosquitoes.

Pierre has been moved across town once, lost a head, lost an arm.

This guy's been through it all, and we love him for it.

And charting at number one, it's Pine City's own Francois.

What makes him our favorite is the artist attempt at historical accuracy.

Former "Pine City Pioneer" editor Mike Gainor explains.

- I happened to do an interview about it for the paper with the sculptor Dennis Roghair, world famous chainsaw artist.

But this was one of his first major pieces, and ended up being the largest piece he ever did.

The artist was familiar with the fact that these voyageurs, you know, although some of them were of European descent, a lot of them were of Ojibwe descent, but they tend to be anglicized in the histories, and he wanted to make it so that this voyageur definitely had Native American features.

And so I think that comes across really well in the statue that he made.

- As a historian, I love to see so many statues dedicated to Minnesota's past, even the ones with weird clothes, or lumpy pants, or no pants at all.

It's just plain old fun that Minnesota has more giant statues of voyageurs than anything else.

Oh, except for all the fish.

(upbeat music) Thanks for watching "Minnesota Historia," your guide to all things quirky in Minnesota history.

Check out some of our other episodes where we go even further and deeper into the quirky, soft underbelly of this very weird state.

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