BIO

Modern day coureur des bois

Billy Rioux embodies the modern day coureur des bois. A historian and outdoor specialist, he has been practicing ancestral North American techniques in the wilderness since the age of 19. For example, he built a raft, as did the gold seekers of 1898, to enable him to navigate more than 700 kilometers on the Yukon River. He built a log cabin with hand tools and he lived there without water or electricity for a year. He also built a birchbark canoe using First Nations techniques and explored an ancient portage route.

At the age of 21, he published his first travelog and gave lectures about his adventure across Canada. At the age of 24, Géo Plein Air magazine named Billy Rioux one of the 20 Quebec personalities who are making the most progress in outdoor activities. The adventurer’s experience in the fields of the outdoors and history have allowed him to be a consultant on numerous award-winning television series (La Ruée vers l’or (TVA), Le Lot du Diable (Historia)). At the age of 39, he won the Joviette-Bernier prize as co-author for the book Récits de Naufrages (VLB). He is also co-host of the series Le trésor de Saint-Castin (Historia), teaches history and outdoor activities at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and is followed on social media by thousands.

Born in Saint-Antonin, Quebec, Billy Rioux discovered two passions at an early age: adventure and history. Inspired by his father, who taught him the basics of hunting and fishing from the age of 8, he learned to live in the forest. As a teenager, he was also fascinated by the stories of past explorers. Naturally, in his twenties, he honed his skills in learning ancestral techniques and exploring historical routes in the wilderness. In his thirties, Billy moved on to Bushcraft, the art of living in the wilderness, drawing heavily on North American history. His latest book and bestseller, Bushcraft, La Survie Relax (VLB), is the first French-language North American book on the subject. 

Equally devoted to research, Billy Rioux has conducted and presented his findings at academic conferences. His subjects are geography, archaeology, natural history and social history in rural areas. He has been interested, among other things, in the chain of operations of smuggling in Eastern Quebec (1920-1933), the history of the Portage Road in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Quebec and judicial practices in rural areas. In particular, he is completing a master’s thesis entitled “Vagrants, Madmen and Criminals: Understanding Marginality and Deviance in the Lower Laurentian Courts in the Second Half of the 19th Century”.

Billy Rioux seeks to promote the benefits of nature through adventure in the forest, bushcrafting, and this, through literature and the medias while maintaining an authentic and humanistic approach. He encourages us to explore the forest and discover its resources while respecting its traditions and the nature.