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Voyageurs
The voyageurs were French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs by canoe during the fur trade years. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places and times where transportation of materials was mainly over long distances. This major and challenging task of the fur trading business was done by canoe and largely by French Canadians. -
Fur Trade
Samuel Champlain made the first planned move into the interior of mainland America. Champlain was the first to realize the great trade potential of the birch bark canoe. -
Coureurs de bois
A coureur des Bois or coureur de bois was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who travelled in New France and the interior of North America. They ventured into unsettled areas usually to trade with First Nations peoples: exchanging various European items for furs. These expeditions were part of the beginning of the fur trade in the North American interior. -
Fur trade
Jean Nicolet traveled through the Great Lakes to Green Bay on what is now Lake Michigan. He claimed all the land in this area for France.By the 1630’s furs were regularly leaving New France for Europe. These furs were mainly supplied by Indian traders, especially the Huron and Ottawa tribes. -
Fur trade
The Hudson Bay Co. was chartered. They claimed all the lands that drained into Hudson Bay as their trading area. Dakota Sioux attacked and drove the Huron and Ottawa out of the western Great Lakes. After this time many Frenchmen moved into the region and began trading directly with the Indians. -
Hudsons bay company
During its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and later British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops across Canada. -
Saskatchewan fur trade
King Charles II granted the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) an enormous swath of North America called Rupert's Land. -
Hudsons bay company
The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existenc. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Other divisions include Galeria Kaufhof, Home Outfitters, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned to Canada in 1869 -
Fur trade
Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Du Luth used the Savannah Portage to reach the interior of Minnesota and Mille Lac. He claimed all the lands for France. He returned to Lake Superior and traveled up the northwest shore and built a post on the Kaministikquai River. -
Radisson and des Groseilliers
Although HBC maintained a fierce competition with the French throughout the fur trade era, the Company’s founding was actually made possible as a result of two French explorers: Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers. -
Fur trade
By Royal Edict, New France closed all its western fur posts. Trade was officially abandoned for 20 years. Illegal traders kept up their operations -
Fur trade
The Fox Wars ended. The Fox had nearly been exterminated by the French and their Indian allies. The trade routes reopened, but changes had occurred. Indian middlemen traders were eliminated. Trade goods were carried west by licensed traders and brought directly to the Indians. -
Samuel Hearne
Samuel Hearne was the first European to travel by land across the Arctic from the east coast to the Arctic Ocean. He took part in three expeditions to the Canadian Arctic to discover the Northwest Passage, greatly increasing European knowledge of the Arctic climate, and resident Inuit and Dene in the process. During his journeys he became one of the first Europeans to document conflict between the Inuit and Dene peoples -
Saskatchewan fur trade
Carlton House, which came to be known as Fort Carlton, was established in 1795 near the junction of the North and South Saskatchewan rivers. -
Fur trade
Britain tried several different arrangements to control the fur trade – imperial control, limiting trade to only five posts, and exclusive licensing. In spite of this, unlicensed traders continued to operate. -
Fur trade
Alexander Henry received exclusive rights to trade on Lake Superior. He and his partner, Jean Baptiste Cadotte, built a post at Chequamagon and sent outfits into the Fon du Lac region. -
David Thompson
David Thompson, explorer, cartographer. David Thomson was called “the greatest land geographer who ever lived.” He walked or paddled 80,000 km or more in his life, mapping most of western Canada, parts of the east and the northwestern United States. And like so many geniuses, his achievements were only recognized after his death. -
Fur Trade
The western Great Lakes and all land north of the Ohio River became part of Quebec and subject to its laws and regulations.Traders started to exploit the region northwest of Grand Portage, but cut-throat competition reduced the profits. Small partnerships were formed to avoid or oppose the competition. -
Saskatchewan fur trade
The first of almost 100 HBC trading posts created over the next century was built in 1774 at Cumberland House, located on what's now the east-central edge of Saskatchewan. -
daniel williams harmon
Harmon was not one of the well known names in fur-trading history. He served mostly in subordinate positions and carried out no explorations. His fame rests solely on his published journal, which documents his experience in the Canadian frontier. The journal was heavily edited and rewritten for publication by the Reverend Daniel Haskel of Burlington, Vermont -
North west company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge. -
American Era
By Congressional Act, the United States forbid foreigners to trade on US soil. The American Fur Co. hired ex-North West traders to work for them. A border war began between the North West Co. and the American Fur Co.. The old Fon du Lac District was renamed the Northern Outfit. -
Sir James Douglas
Douglas was apprenticed to the North West Company (NWC), a major force in the fur trade, and sailed to Montreal. He spent his first years working in the counting houses of Fort William learning the fur trade and its accounting practices. -
Saskatchewan fur trade
The furs they used to pay for their outfits were called the 'returns of trade', and HBC clerks used a currency called the Made Beaver (MB) to determine the value of these returns. The MB was the value of one beaver pelt, but it was used to calculate the worth of all furs.a blanket or a good knife cost two to three MB, while a new rifle ran about 20-25 MB. -
Sir James Douglas
Douglas was asked by Chief Factor William Connolly to join the first overland fur brigade from Fort Alexandria on the upper Fraser River to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River According to Connolly, Douglas was a “Fine steady active fellow good clerk & Trader, well adapted for a new country.” -
Sir James Douglas
George Simpson, governor of Rupert’s Land, who met Douglas at Fort St. James in 1828, described him as “a stout, powerful active man of good conduct and respectable abilities.” However, Simpson also mentioned that Douglas became “furiously violent when aroused,” a tendency that brought him into conflicts with the Dakelh (Carrier) peoples. -
Sir James Douglas
Douglas married Connolly’s daughter, Amelia, whose mother, Miyo Nipiy, was Cree. (The couple was married in a Church of England ceremony in Fort Vancouver in 1837.) -
American Era
American Fur Co. was reorganized. Ramsey Crooks now operated the company. American Fur had a monopoly in the Fon du Lac, but due to expenses, cut the number of its posts in the region by half. -
Sir James Douglas
Douglas travelled to Alaska to negotiate boundary and trade deals with the Russian American Company. In 1843, as American influence on the Pacific Northwest increased, Douglas began constructing Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island to replace the northern coastal forts. -
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Sir James Douglas
In order to prevent American expansion northward, on 13 January 1849, Vancouver Island was declared a Crown colony and was leased to HBC for 10 years. Douglas, the supervisor of the fur trade since 1845, was appointed HBC agent on the island. However, the British government selected barrister Richard Blanshard for governor. -
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Sir James Douglas
From 1850 to 1854, Douglas negotiated 14 land purchases with First Nations on Vancouver Island, including land in and around Fort Victoria, Fort Rupert and Nanaimo. These are known as the Douglas Treaties or Fort Victoria Treaties. In each, lands were purchased in exchange for small amounts of cash, clothing, blankets, occupation of reserved lands, and hunting and fishing rights on unoccupied ceded lands. -
Alexander Mackenzie (Prime Minister)
Mackenzie was well known and respected enough that in March 1873 he was named leader of the Liberal opposition. In November that year, he formed the first federal Liberal administration in Canada after Sir John A. Macdonald’s government was brought down by the Pacific Scandal. Almost immediately after forming a government, Mackenzie called an election. In January 1874, with the Pacific Scandal weighing down Conservative fortunes, the Liberals won a large majority. -
Saskatchewan fur trade
Treaty Six, the most comprehensive and controversial of the so-called 'numbered treaties', was signed here in 1876 by the Plains and Wood Cree, and the Crown. It paved the way for European settlement of Saskatchewan by promising the Cree people land and assistance programs in return for their claim on the territory. -
Sir James Douglas
Douglas was praised for his work and talents and invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, which earned him the title Sir. Douglas toured Europe in retirement before returning to Victoria, where he died of a heart attack on 2 August 1877. -
Saskatchewan fur trade
The fur-trading season got underway in autumn, when First Nations trappers arrived at the post to pick up their 'outfits' - the food, clothing and other goods required for a winter spent in the forest. The outfits, purchased 'on credit', were tailored to meet the needs and wishes of each individual trapper. -
Sir George Simpson 1787
As Governor of the Northern Department, George Simpson was an influential force in the development of HBC during the 19th century. He regularly oversaw the Company’s vast territory from his canoe as he travelled across the continent, which eventually earned him the nickname “The Birchbark Emperor.”
