Jean-Étienne Waddens (also Vuadens, Wadin), born in 1738 to Adam Samuel Waddens and Bernardine Ermon, was a fur trader who was killed in 1782 at Lac La Ronge during a dispute with Peter Pond. Initially from Switzerland, Waddens arrived in Canada as a soldier and transitioned into the fur trade. He remained in Switzerland until at least 1755 but joined the colonial regular troops of New France by 1757, later renouncing Calvinism in May of that year. After Montreal's surrender in 1760, he settled in the area. Waddens married Marie Josephe De Guire on November 23, 1761, in St. Laurent near Montreal. They had two children, Josepha and Veronique. Another daughter, Marguerite, from a "country-style" marriage, wed fur trader Alexander MacKay and later John McLoughlin, a prominent Hudson's Bay Company official. Starting as a small independent trader, Waddens was active in the fur trade by 1772 at Grand Portage. He held a license for two canoes in 1773 and operated in the Saskatchewan valley and southern Athabasca country by 1779. He was involved in the “nine parties’ agreement,” a precursor to the North West Company. At Lac La Ronge, he conducted a profitable trade with the “Northward Indians” from Lake Athabasca. His relationship with Peter Pond, who joined him in late 1781, was contentious, leading to Waddens' fatal injury in March 1782. Following his death, Waddens' widow sought justice from Governor Frederick Haldimand, but Pond was not prosecuted, likely due to jurisdictional issues. Although not much is known about his character, Alexander Mackenzie described Waddens as a man of “strict probity and known sobriety.” Despite his rise from a private in 1757 to a member of the bourgeois by 1782, he did not achieve the prominence of trader-capitalists like James McGill.

Jean-Étienne Waddens - Wikipedia