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.
One of the few surviving documents from this important period in Canadian history is The English River In 1786 the North West Company traded furs in Athabaska territory as a branch of its English River district. English River was the fur trader's name for the Churchill River. The journal, which was probably kept by Cuthbert Grant the elder (later a North West Company partner), provides a day-to-day record of trade in the spring of April 1786 at Fort Athabaska, under the direction of Peter Pond. The vividly written text describes Pond's peremptory manner with the Indians and the traders'return to civilization in May. Colourful anecdotes describe events such as the time the Athabaska River, blocked by ice, flooded the fort, leaving its inhabitants scrambling for the rafters. The journal lists the names of clerks and voyageurs and contains some of the earliest native names on record. In addition to listing the names of those who worked and traded in the area, The English River Book catalogues duties, wages, stations, and many other details concerning the approximately one hundred voyageurs in the English River district during 1785 and 1786. Included are many familiar figures: such as Joseph Cartier, an interpreter whose fur trading career lasted almost sixty years, and Joseph Landry and Charles Doucette, the Acadian voyageurs who a few years later guided Alexander Mackenzie to the Arctic and the Pacific oceans, The English River Book also contains inventories of trading goods, some familiar, some mysterious, and features a short Cree trading vocabulary. In The English River Book romantic lore of the fur trade and the adventurous lives of the traders are recounted on the spot and in the heat of events. This text is unique in that, rather than providing the reminiscence of a retired trader, it presents an active working journal.
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.
One of the few surviving documents from this important period in Canadian history is The English River In 1786 the North West Company traded furs in Athabaska territory as a branch of its English River district. English River was the fur trader's name for the Churchill River. The journal, which was probably kept by Cuthbert Grant the elder (later a North West Company partner), provides a day-to-day record of trade in the spring of April 1786 at Fort Athabaska, under the direction of Peter Pond. The vividly written text describes Pond's peremptory manner with the Indians and the traders'return to civilization in May. Colourful anecdotes describe events such as the time the Athabaska River, blocked by ice, flooded the fort, leaving its inhabitants scrambling for the rafters. The journal lists the names of clerks and voyageurs and contains some of the earliest native names on record. In addition to listing the names of those who worked and traded in the area, The English River Book catalogues duties, wages, stations, and many other details concerning the approximately one hundred voyageurs in the English River district during 1785 and 1786. Included are many familiar figures: such as Joseph Cartier, an interpreter whose fur trading career lasted almost sixty years, and Joseph Landry and Charles Doucette, the Acadian voyageurs who a few years later guided Alexander Mackenzie to the Arctic and the Pacific oceans, The English River Book also contains inventories of trading goods, some familiar, some mysterious, and features a short Cree trading vocabulary. In The English River Book romantic lore of the fur trade and the adventurous lives of the traders are recounted on the spot and in the heat of events. This text is unique in that, rather than providing the reminiscence of a retired trader, it presents an active working journal.
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