In an effort to encourage settlement in New France, Louis XIV sent young girls to the colony to be brides for the fur traders and coureurs de bois.coureurs de bois: the coureurs de bois were skilled woodsmen, trappers & canoeists, important to the fur trade. Strong country girls around sixteen years of age were usually chosen to be sent to the new world where they were looked after by nuns until they had found husbands. They often had their choice of husbands, since there were few women compared to the number of men. Life was still hard for them, though, and the winters were more severe than anything they had known in France.

Louis even supplied dowriesdowry: the money, property, etc. that brides bring to their husbands at marriage. for his "filles" which usually consisted of clothing or household supplies. This was more than their poor families back home might have been able to provide and although they faced hardship in New France, the life they left behind often had more limited prospects.