In this day and age of planes and automobiles, it may be difficult to imagine what travel involved 400 years ago, before the invention of the piston engine or even the steam engine. In New France, the energy of wind and currents, draught animals, or human beings working oars was the only way of providing means of travel for people, goods and information.

Writing case excavated at the site of Champlain’s second habitation, 1624-1688

To send a letter from Versailles to Detroit, for example, first it had to be sent by horse or carriage to the ports of La Rochelle or Bordeaux. Then followed the long trans-Atlantic voyage aboard sailing ships. On arriving at Québec, the missive was placed in a smaller craft, or in winter, a sleigh: no rideable road linked the capital with Montréal before the end of the 1730s. Upstream of Montréal, the canoe became the favoured mode of transportation when the river was ice free.

The following article presents means and networks of communication in New France. It reveals the ways in which in royal decrees and the reports of colonial administrators, the correspondence and merchandise of businessmen and personal letters of the colonists were conveyed throughout the Atlantic region and on the continent. In cities or in rural parishes, the more or less ritualized use of bells, drums and proclamations, as well as word of mouth, provided means of circulating information.