The Fur Trade In Canada

A classic work of Canadian historical scholarship, first published in 1930. In his new introduction, A.J. Ray states that this book is argueably the most definitive economic history and geography of Canada ever produced.

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.

At the time of its publication in 1930, The Fur Trade in Canada challenged and inspired scholars, historians, and economists. Now, almost seventy years later, Harold Innis's fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian history continues to exert a magnetic influence. Innis has long been regarded as one of Canada's foremost historians, and in The Fur Trade in Canada he presents several histories in one: social history through the clash between colonial and aboriginal cultures; economic history in the development of the West as a result of Eastern colonial and European needs; and transportation history in the case of the displacement of the canoe by the York boat. Political history appears in Innis's examination of the nature of French-British rivalry and the American Revolution; and business history is represented in his detailed account of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies and the industry that played so vital a role in the expansion of Canada. In his introduction to this new edition, Arthur J. Ray argues that The Fur Trade in Canada is the most definitive economic history and geography of the country ever produced. Innis's revolutionary conclusion - that Canada was created because of its geography, not in spite of it - is a captivating idea but also an enigmatic proposition in light of the powerful decentralizing forces that threaten the nation today. Ray presents the history of the book and concludes that "Innis's great book remains essential reading for the study of Canada."

The early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company comes alive in these true tales of fur-trade wars, incredible wilderness journeys, hardships and danger. Founded by the extraordinary adventurers and renegades Radisson and des Groseilliers, the HBC attracted many memorable characters. Explorer Henry Kelsey was the first European to see the buffalo herds. James Knight met a mysterious fate on a frozen northern island. Brave Isabel Gunn worked in the fur trade disguised as a man. Anyone who enjoys historical adventure will relish these exciting stories of Canada’s oldest company.

In this book, extensively illustrated with visuals from some of Canada's most prominent museums and archives, historian Michael Payne explores the personalities and events that shaped this powerful business.

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.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century the Hudson's Bay Company had a virtual monopoly on the core area of the fur trade in Canada. Its products were the object of intense competition among merchants on two continents – in Leipzig, New York, London, Winnipeg, St Louis, and Montreal. But in 1870 things began to change, and by the end of the Second World War the company's share had dropped to about a quarter of the trade. Arthur Ray explores the decades of transition, the economic and technological changes that shaped them, and their impact on the Canadian north and its people. Among the developments that affected the fur trade during this period were innovations in transportation and communication; increased government involvement in business, conservation, and native economic welfare; and the effects of two severe depressions (1873-95 and 1929-38) and two world wars. The Hudson's Bay Company, confronting the first of these changes as early as 1871, embarked on a diversification program that was intended to capitalize on new economic opportunities in land development, retailing, and resource ventures. Meanwhile it continued to participate in its traditional sphere of operations. But the company's directors had difficulty keeping pace with the rapid changes that were taking place in the fur trade, and the company began to lose ground. Ray's study is the first to make extensive use of the Hudson's Bay Company archives dealing with the period between 1870 and 1945. These and other documents reveal a great deal about the decline of the company, and thus about a key element in the history of the modern Canadian fur trade.