My First Years In The Fur Trade

Written when Nelson was between the ages of 15 and 17, these journals track his growth from homesick boy to weathered and experienced trader. The volume also tells of his daily work as a fur clerk, and the goings-on of the world around him; and it provides details concerning the lives of the other fur workers and the neighboring Objiwa peoples. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Captivated by tales of adventure, fifteen-year-old George Nelson left his family in Quebec in 1802 and headed to the Northwest Territory to work for Sir Alexander Mackenzie's XY Company, one of the major fur trade companies of the time. Required to keep a daily log as a fur trade clerk, his growth from homesick lad to experienced fur trader forms the heart of this unique and fascinating journal. He recorded his feelings and thoughts, and was a vital witness to all that went on around him. Nelson's journals are particularly valuable for their candid observations on the customs and culture of the Ojibwa people and provide some of the most detailed descriptions available of Ojibwa spiritual practices. Long treasured by fur trade historians, the early journals of George Nelson are published here in their entirety for the first time. Careful editing and annotation by Laura Peers and Theresa Schenck explain references to people and Ojibwa culture and provide context on the North American fur trade.

As fur traders were driven across northern North America by economic motivations, the landscape over which they plied their trade was punctuated by sound: shouting, singing, dancing, gunpowder, rattles, jingles, drums, fiddles, and – very occasionally – bagpipes. Fur trade interactions were, in a word, noisy. Daniel Laxer unearths traces of music, performance, and other intangible cultural phenomena long since silenced, allowing us to hear the fur trade for the first time. Listening to the Fur Trade uses the written record, oral history, and material culture to reveal histories of sound and music in an era before sound recording. The trading post was a noisy nexus, populated by a polyglot crowd of highly mobile people from different national, linguistic, religious, cultural, and class backgrounds. They found ways to interact every time they met, and facilitating material interests and survival went beyond the simple exchange of goods. Trust and good relations often entailed gift-giving: reciprocity was performed with dances, songs, and firearm salutes. Indigenous protocols of ceremony and treaty-making were widely adopted by fur traders, who supplied materials and technologies that sometimes changed how these ceremonies sounded. Within trading companies, masters and servants were on opposite ends of the social ladder but shared songs in the canoes and lively dances during the long winters at the trading posts. While the fur trade was propelled by economic and political interests, Listening to the Fur Trade uncovers the songs and ceremonies of First Nations people, the paddling songs of the voyageurs, and the fiddle music and step-dancing at the trading posts that provided its pulse.

In 1528, the Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions were shipwrecked and, looking for help, began an eight-year trek through the deserts of the American West. Over three centuries later, the four "Great Surveys" in the United States were consolidated into the U.S. Geological Survey. The frontiers were the lands near or beyond the recognized international, national, regional, or tribal borders. Over the centuries, they hosted a complicated series of international explorations of lands inhabited by American Indians, Spanish, French-Canadians, British, and Americans. These explorations were undertaken for wide-ranging reasons including geographical, scientific, artistic-literary, and for the growth of the railroad. This history covers over 350 years of exploration of the West.

"In The Spirit Lives in the Mind the renowned storyteller and historian of the Omushkego shares teachings and stories of the Swampy Cree [Winisk Northern Ontario region] people that have been passed down from generation to generation as part of a rich oral tradition. Cree spiritual beliefs revolve around the sacred places and rich landscape of the Hudson Bay lowlands. [James Bay region also.] The beautiful narratives in The Spirit Lives in the Mind illuminate the meaning and value of spiritual maturity and power, the parallels between Omushkego morality and Roman Catholic teachings, and the importance of maintaining the traditional stories. Bird also offers explanations of shamanism and demonstrates how Catholicism affected Cree tradition. Bird collaborated with Susan Elaine Gray, who worked from many years of learning about and teaching Aboriginal culture and traditions in compiling his narratives and personal testament for The Spirit Lives in the Mind. It is a remarkable evocation of aboriginal storytelling about the Cree peoples, their landscape, and their places in the sky."--Pub. website.

Through a detailed analysis of their unique occupational culture, Making the Voyageur World reexamines the French Canadian workers who dominated the fur trade industry and became iconic images of North American lore.

George Nelson (1786–1859) was a clerk for the North West Company whose unusually detailed and personal writings provide a compelling portrait of the people engaged in the golden age of the Canadian fur trade. Friends, Foes, and Furs is a critical edition of Nelson's daily journals, supplemented with exciting anecdotes from his "Reminiscences," which were written after his retirement to Lower Canada. An introduction and annotations by Harry Duckworth place Nelson's material securely within the established body of fur trade history. This series of journals gives readers a first-person account of Nelson's life and career, from his arrival at the age of eighteen in Lake Winnipeg, where he was stationed as an apprentice clerk from 1804 to 1813, to his second service from 1818 to 1819 and an 1822 canoe journey through the region. A keen and respectful observer, Nelson recorded in his daily journals not only the minutiae of his work, but also details about the lives of voyageurs, the Ojibwe and Swampy Cree communities, and others involved in the fur trade. His insights uncover an extraordinary view of the Lake Winnipeg region in the period just prior to European settlement. Making the full extent of George Nelson's journals available for the first time, Friends, Foes, and Furs is an intriguing account of one man's adventures in the fur trade in prairie Canada.

A vital part of A Country So Interesting are the annotated catalogues of all the maps known to have been produced by the Hudson's Bay Company: 838 maps and 557 sketches. While most are in the Company's archives in Manitoba, Ruggles has tracked down maps in other collections, particularly in various libraries in London, England. Also included are sixty-six reproductions of the most important maps and map details.