Fur trade scholarship has changed considerably in recent years. The tempo of research has quickened and the field has become more multidisciplinary, bringing together scholars in archaeology, economics, ethnohistory, geography, history, and anthropology. The papers in this volume reflect recent developments in several specific areas of research: mapping, native cultures, social and labour history, personalities, the Pacific coast, and economics. The moving of the Hudson's Bay Archives from London to Winnipeg in 1974 has patriated an incredibly rich source of information on many aspects of Canadian history, and the effects of this superb collection being available to Canadian scholars are just beginning to be felt. In this volume we can see that the history of the fur trade in Canada is not merely the story of the world's first great multi-national – the Hudson's Bay Company – but a study of a complex society during a period of more than two centuries. Languages, customs, transportation, personalities, marriage, and even sex are looked at in the wide-ranging papers in this book.

This collection of 35 readings on Canadian prairie history includes overview interpretation and current research on topics such as the fur trade, native peoples, ethnic groups, status of women, urban and rural society, the Great Depression and literature and art.

Each year more than five hundred new books appear in the field of North American Indian history. There exists, however, no means by which scholars can easily judge which are most significant, which explore new fields of inquiry and ask new questions, and which areas are the subject of especially strong inquiry or are being overlooked. New Directions in American Indian History provides some answers to these questions by bringing together a collection of bibliographic essays by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, religionists, linguists, economists, and legal scholars who are working at the cutting edge of Indian history. This volume responds to the label "new directions" in two ways. First, it describes what new directions have been pursued recently by historians of the Indian experience. Second, it points out some new directions that remain to be pursued. Part One, "Recent Trends," contains six essays reviewing the following six areas where there has been significant interest and activity: quantitative methods in Native American history, by Melissa L. Meyer and Russell Thornton; American Indian women, by Deborah Welch; new developments in Métis history, by Dennis F.K. Madill; recent developments in southern plains Indian history, by Willard Rollings; Indians and the law, by George S. Grossman; and twentieth-century Indian history, by James Riding In. Part Two, "Emerging Trends," contains essays on aspects of Indian history that remain undeveloped: language study and Plains Indian history, by Douglas R. Parks; economics and American Indian history, by Ronald L. Trosper; and religious changes in Native American societies, by Robert A. Brightman. These latter essays present a critique of current scholarship and sketch an agenda for future inquiry. Taken together, the nine essays in this book will help students at all levels to evaluate recent scholarship and tap the immense contemporary literature on American Indian history.

This book examines over 4000 years of culture history of the related Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah peoples on western Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula. Using data from the Toquaht Archaeological Project, McMillan challenges current ethnographic interpretations that show little or no change in these peoples’ culture. Instead, by combining historical evidence, recent archaeological data, and oral traditions he demonstrates conclusively that there were in fact extensive cultural changes and restructuring in these societies in the century following contact with Europeans. McMillan brings the reader up to modern times, identifying the major issues that face the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah communities today.

The papers in this book focus on themes which have been near the centre of fur trade scholarship: the identification of Indian motivations; the degree to which Indians were discriminating consumers and creative participants; and the extent of Native dependency on the trade. Spanning the period from the seventeenth century up to and including the twentieth, with distinguished authors such as J. Arthur Ray and Toby Morantz, The Subarctic Fur Trade will help scholars become more fully aware of the issues concerned with Native economic history.

Scholarly depictions of the history of Aboriginal people in Canada have changed dramatically since the 1970s when Arthur J. ("Skip") Ray entered the field. New Histories for Old examines this transformation while extending the scholarship on Canada's Aboriginal history in new directions. This collection combines essays by prominent senior historians, geographers, and anthropologists with contributions by new voices in these fields. The chapters reflect themes including Native struggles for land and resources under colonialism, the fur trade, "Indian" policy and treaties, mobility and migration, disease and well-being, and Native-newcomer relations.

A collection of essays on the Metis Native americans by various authors.

A classic study of the Assiniboine and western Cree Indians who inhabited southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan between 1660 and 1870. The second edition contains a new preface and an update on all sources.

What does it mean to be Metis? How do the Metis understand their world, and how do family, community, and location shape their consciousness? Such questions inform this collection of essays on the northwestern North American people of mixed European and Native ancestry who emerged in the seventeenth century as a distinct culture. Volume editors Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall go beyond the concern with race and ethnicity that takes center stage in most discussions of Metis culture to offer new ways of thinking about Metis identity. Geography, mobility, and family have always defined Metis culture and society. The Metis world spanned the better part of a continent, and a major theme of Contours of a People is the Metis conception of geography—not only how Metis people used their environments but how they gave meaning to place and developed connections to multiple landscapes. Their geographic familiarity, physical and social mobility, and maintenance of family ties across time and space appear to have evolved in connection with the fur trade and other commercial endeavors. These efforts, and the cultural practices that emerged from them, have contributed to a sense of community and the nationalist sentiment felt by many Metis today. Writing about a wide geographic area, the contributors consider issues ranging from Metis rights under Canadian law and how the Library of Congress categorizes Metis scholarship to the role of women in maintaining economic and social networks. The authors’ emphasis on geography and its power in shaping identity will influence and enlighten Canadian and American scholars across a variety of disciplines.