Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference

Carol M Judd · Arthur J. Ray

Dec 1980 · University of Toronto Press

About this ebook

Fur trade scholarship has changed considerably in recent years. The tempo of research has quickened and the field has become more multidisciplinary, bringing together scholars in archaeology, economics, ethnohistory, geography, history, and anthropology. The papers in this volume reflect recent developments in several specific areas of research: mapping, native cultures, social and labour history, personalities, the Pacific coast, and economics.

The moving of the Hudson's Bay Archives from London to Winnipeg in 1974 has patriated an incredibly rich source of information on many aspects of Canadian history, and the effects of this superb collection being available to Canadian scholars are just beginning to be felt. In this volume we can see that the history of the fur trade in Canada is not merely the story of the world's first great multi-national – the Hudson's Bay Company – but a study of a complex society during a period of more than two centuries. Languages, customs, transportation, personalities, marriage, and even sex are looked at in the wide-ranging papers in this book.

About the author

Carol M. Judd has been an editor with the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and a historian with Parks Canada.

Arthur Ray is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia.