Bonga. A Safe Abode in the Wilderness. Barry Babcock. 2024
Empire of the Bay: The Company of Adventurers That Seized a Continent. Peter C. Newman. (New York: Penguin Books, 1998). This sweeping volume chronicles the epic adventures of the eccentric knights, unscrupulous financiers, and shrewd Scottish traders who created the North American fur trade. Includes Newman's combined volumes Company of Adventurers & Caesars of the Wilderness.
Exploring the Fur Trade Routes of North America: Discover the Highways that Opened a Continent. Barbara Huck. (Winnipeg: Heartland Publications, Inc., 2000). Explains how the fur trade is the story of North America. Profiles dozens of fur trade sites in Canada and the upper Midwest, including the North West Company Fur Post in Pine City, Minnesota, and Grand Portage National Monument.
First Across the Continent: Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Barry Gough. (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997). The history of Alexander Mackenzie, a man of enormous ego and overpowering ambition who left Scotland in search of opportunity in the North American fur trade.
Fur Trade Nation. An Ojibwe's Graphic History. Written and illustrated by Carl Gawboy. (Cloquet, Minnesota: Animikii Mazina'iganan: Thunderbird Press, 2024)
The Illustrated Voyageur. Howard Sivertson. (Duluth, Minnesota: Lake Superior Port Cities, Inc., 1999). Beautiful, carefully researched paintings, accompanied by informative text relating to various aspects of the Lake Superior fur trade.
Lake Superior to Rainy Lake: Three Centuries of Fur Trade History. Jean Morrison, editor. (Thunder Bay, Ontario: Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 2003) This collection of writings focuses on the fur trade along Canada-U.S. borderlands, topics include the rivalry and relationship between the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company.
Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. Carolyn Podruchny. (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2006). Explores the beliefs, ethics, culture and daily lives of the voyageurs who worked in the fur trade as paddlers and laborers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Many Tender Ties. Sylvia Van Kirk. (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980) Insightful exploration of women's roles on the fur trade society indicating that Indian, Metis and European women maintained a powerful influence.
The Northwest Company. Marjorie Wilkins Campbell. (Vancouver/Toronto Press: Douglas & McIntyre, Publishers, 1957, reprinted 1983) One of the first modern histories of the group of independent fur traders from Montreal that banded together to form the North West Company. Describes their far-reaching accomplishments and the course of the country that would become Canada.
The Nor'Westers: The Fight for the Fur Trade. Marjorie Wilkins Cambell. (Calgary, Alberta and Allston, Massachusetts: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2002) Captures the drama of the North West Company fur trade, from 1779 until the Hudson's Bay Company took over in 1821.
Superior Rendezvous Place: Fort William in the Canadian Fur Trade. Jean Morrison. (Toronto, Ontario: Natural Heritage books, 2001) A history of fort William, and the role it played in the early 19th century fur trade.
A Toast to the Fur Trade: A Picture Essay on Its Material Culture. Robert C. Wheeler illustrated by David Christofferson. (Saint Paul, Minnesota: Wheeler Productions, 1985) Thoroughly researched wonderful illustrations of actual artifacts found at fur trade sites such as Grand Portage.
The Voyageur. Grace Lee Nute. (St Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1955, reprinted 1987) For many years, this was the definitive work on French-Canadians who manned the great canoes of the fur trade from Montreal to the far northwest. The author brought the world of the fur trade alive to a wide audience with this book.
The Voyageur's Highway: Minnesota's Border Lake Land. Grace lee Nute. (Minnesota Historical Society Press,1941, reprinted 1969). Another classic, describes the routes along Lake Superior that connected to Minnesota's inland waterways used by explorers, fur traders, missionaries, map makers, lumberjacks, miners, conservationists, and naturalists.
Where Two Worlds Meet: The Great Lakes Fur Trade. Carolyn Gilman, editor. (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1982) Exhibit catalog; interesting and useful resources for its many important essays and illustrations about the upper Great Lakes fur trade and its material culture.
Map drawn from information from a Cree guide named Auchagah that shows the water route, including the Grand Portage trail, from Lake Superior to the "western sea" (Lake Winnipeg).
NPP Photo
Fur Trade Journals
The Falcon John Tanner (Penguin Books, 2003) With an introduction by Louise Erdrich 1994. Autobiography of Kentucky born John Tanner raised by an Ojibwe family in the north woods in the first half of the 19th century.
Five Fur Traders of the Northwest. Charles M. Gates, editor. (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1965). One of the first popular resources on the fur trade, this book contains the narrative of Peter Pond, as well as four diaries by John Macdonell, Archibald N. McLeod, Hugh Faries, and Thomas Conner (Conner's journal was later correctly attributed to John Sayer).
Harmon's Journal 1800-1819. Daniel Williams Harmon. W. Kaye Lamb, editor. (Victoria, British Columbia: Touch Wood Editions, 2006). Reprint of the authentic 1957 version, this is, "One of the most famous journals of the Canadian fur trade..." It tells an engaging story about the North West Company and Harmon's initial resistance to new cultures to his marriage a la facon du pays (in the fashion of the country).
My First Years in the Fur Trade: The Journals of 1802-1804. George Nelson. Laura Peers & Theresa Schenck, editors. (Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002). The journal of a fifteen-year-old boy leaving his family and beginning a five-year adventure as a clerk for the XY Company and adapting to his new life as a fur trader.
The Writings of David Thompson, Travels. William E. Moreau, editor. (McGill-Queen's University Press & University of Washington Press, 2009). Includes an introductory essay, placing Thompson in his historical and intellectual context and describing the central themes and characteristics of his work, a textual introduction, a chronology, the 1850 Travels text, and extensive annotations touching on all the branches of knowledge on which Thompson writes, including the fur trade, natural history, astronomy, and native peoples.
The Writings of David Thompson Volume I - The Travels, 1850 Version, Edited with An Introduction By William E. Moreau. (The Champlain Society, 2009). One of the finest early expressions of the land and Native people of western North America.
The Writings of David Thompson Volume II - The Travels, 1848 Version, and Associated Texts Edited with an introduction By William E. Moreau. (The Champlain Society, 2015). Volume II of an eventual three volume set based on a fresh transcription from the original manuscript meeting modern standards of documentary editing.
