Describes the life of a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, based on extracts from his letters.

Describes the life of a Hudson's Bay Company clerk, based on extracts from his letters.

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the North West and Hudson�s Bay companies extended their operations beyond the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. There they encountered a mild and forgiving climate and abundant natural resources and, with the aid of Native traders, branched out into farming, fishing, logging, and mining. Following its merger with the North West Company in 1821, the Hudson�s Bay Company set up its headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. From there, the company dominated much of the non-Native economy, sending out goods to markets in Hawaii, Sitka, and San Francisco. Trading Beyond the Mountains looks at the years of exploration between 1793 and 1843 leading to the commercial development of the Pacific coast and the Cordilleran interior of western North America. Mackie examines the first stages of economic diversification in this fur trade region and its transformation into a dynamic and distinctive regional economy. He also documents the Hudson�s Bay Company�s employment of Native slaves and labourers in the North West coast region.

A wide-ranging, readable account of an eccentric and exceptional man who crossed cultures and changed history.

In The Lifeline of the Oregon Country, James Gibson compellingly immerses the reader in one of the most intractable problems faced by the Hudson's Bay Company: how to realize wealth from such a remote and formidable land. The personalities, places, obstacles, and operations involved in the brigade system are all described in fascinating detail, stretch by stretch from Fort St. James, the depot of New Caledonia on the upper reaches of the Fraser River, to Fort Vancouver, the Columbia Department’s entrepôt on the lower Columbia River, and back. Never before has such a rich collection of primary information concerning the fur trade supply system and the constraining role of logistics been so meticulously assembled. The Lifeline of the Oregon Country will prove indispensable to historians, researchers, and fur trade enthusiasts alike, and is an important contribution to our understanding of the economic history of the Pacific Slope.

Manitoba has been at the crossroads of many of the important debates and events in Canadian history. From the early fur trade to the Riel Rebellion to the Winnipeg General Strike, Manitobans have frequently played crucial roles in Canadian and sometimes world history. Until now, there has been no comprehensive, contemporary source for information on the many Manitobans who have left their mark on history and society. Dictionary of Manitoba Biography fills this gap, with biographical sketches of over 1700 Manitobans who have made an impact in politics, the arts, sports, commerce, agriculture, and society. It is an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and general readers interested in Canadian history. Particular emphasis has been placed on reflecting Manitoba's ethnic and social diversity, and on including men and women who were notable in their own day but have now been forgotten. Many entries also refer the reader to additional references for further reading. More than a reference book, Dictionary of Manitoba Biography is also a fascinating work of history in its own right, which presents the full and colourful scope of over 300 years of people in Manitoba history and social life, from premiers and mayors to nightclub owners and sports heroes.

Canada's western wilderness was the scene of fur trader John Tod's extraordinary life. Born in a Scottish village in 1794, Tod spent 40 adventurous years working for the Hudson's Bay Company and in his later years, served on the first Legislative Council of the fledgling colony of Vancouver Island. Posted all over the Company's vast territory - York Factory, McLeod Lake, Fort Alexandria, Island Lake, Fort Kamloops - he spent most of his years in New Caledonia. A spirited and prickly man he was a free thinker, impatient with authority and distrustful of many of his superiors. He was also a lifelong and loyal friend to many of his fur-trade colleagues, especially John Work, the Ermatinger brothers and James Murray Yale. Tod saw astonishing changes in the west, from the bitter warfare between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Nor'Westers, to settlement by pioneers and the conventions of the polite colonial society. Few lives have spanned such contrasts. This definitive biography presents the picture of the unusual man in an exciting era.

During a meteoric career that spanned from 1825 to 1834, David Douglas made the first systematic collections of flora and fauna over many parts of the greater Pacific Northwest. Despite his early death, colleagues in Great Britain attached the Douglas name to more than 80 different species, including the iconic timber tree of the region. David Douglas, a Naturalist at Work is a colorfully illustrated collection of essays that examines various aspects of Douglas's career, demonstrating the connections between his work in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century and the place we know today. From the Columbia River's perilous bar to luminous blooms of mountain wildflowers; from ever-changing frontiers of technology to the quiet seasonal rhythms of tribal families gathering roots, these essays collapse time to shed light on people and landscapes. This volume is the companion book to a major museum exhibit about Douglas's Pacific Northwest travels that will open at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane in September 2012.

Jean Barman was the recipient of the 2014 George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award. In French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest, Jean Barman rewrites the history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of French Canadians attracted by the fur economy, the indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants. Joined in this distant setting by Quebec paternal origins, the French language, and Catholicism, French Canadians comprised Canadiens from Quebec, Iroquois from the Montreal area, and métis combining Canadien and indigenous descent. For half a century, French Canadians were the largest group of newcomers to this region extending from Oregon and Washington east into Montana and north through British Columbia. Here, they facilitated the early overland crossings, drove the fur economy, initiated non-wholly-indigenous agricultural settlement, eased relations with indigenous peoples, and ensured that, when the region was divided in 1846, the northern half would go to Britain, giving today’s Canada its Pacific shoreline.

In about 1800, fur trader Charles Ermatinger married an Obijwa woman, Mananowe. Their three sons grew up with both their mother's hunter/warrior culture and their father's European culture. As adults, they lived adventurously in Montreal and St Thomas, where they were accepted and loved by fellow citizens while publicly retaining their Ojibwa heritage. The Ermatingers contrasts the "European" commercial and trading society in urban Montreal, where Charles was brought up, with the Ojibwa hunter/warrior values of Mananowe's society. Their sons variously risked life at war in Spain and in the Upper and Lower Canada rebellions, policed Montreal streets in an era of riots, spied on the Fenians on the US border, and made a hazardous journey to help establish the Canadian Pacific Railway's route. Brian Stewart argues that the sons' Ojibwa traditions and values shaped their adult lives: during their adventures, the sons fought for Native rights for themselves as well as for Ojibwa relatives and friends. The Ermatingers is an exciting story that contributes to our understanding of Indian and European biculturalism and its effects on those who make up the various forms of M�tis society today. It will appeal to general readers as well as scholars and students in Native studies and Canadian history.