The HBC Brigades
Culture, conflict and perilous journeys of the fur trade
Checking Availibility...Description
A lively recounting of the tough men and heroic but overworked packhorses who broke open B.C. to the big business of the 19th-century fur trade.
Facing a gruelling thousand-mile trail, the brigades of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) pushed onward over mountains and through ferocious river crossings to reach the isolated fur-trading posts. But it wasn't just the landscape the brigades faced, as First Nations people struggled with the desire to resist, or assist, the fur company's attempts to build their brigade trails over the Aboriginal trails that led between Indigenous communities, which surrounded the trading posts. Nancy Marguerite Anderson reveals how the devastating Cayuse War of 1847 forced the HBC men over a newly-explored overland trail to Fort Langley. The journey was a disaster-in-waiting.
About this Author
Nancy Marguerite Anderson is Metis, and an accepted member of Metis Nation British Columbia. She is descended from a North West Company voyageur known to have lived and worked in Red River District for many years; a man who crossed the Rocky Mountains with explorer David Thompson, and whose daughter married a Scottish gentleman in the west. Because of her Scottish ancestors' involvement with the York Factory Express and the HBC Brigades on the Pacific Slopes, she has (to her surprise) become a transportation historian of sorts, writing about the journeys that the Hudson's Bay Company men made both east and west of the Rocky Mountains. nancymargueriteanderson.com
Reviews
"With vivid prose and historical sensitivity, this fine book takes the reader over rugged mountains and along raging rivers that challenged men, horses, and boats. Enlivened by the words of the explorers who established the trails and the brigade leaders who used them, the text is further enhanced by pertinent illustrations and excellent maps." - Tom Holloway, fur trade historian
"Historically accurate and engaging narratives that connect us all to our diffuse and yet collective past. Herself having deep family roots in the fur-trade and possessing a penchant for story-telling, Anderson's work is a gift that must be read to be appreciated." - Bruce McIntyre Watson, author of Lives Lived West of the Divide
"Anderson has mined obscure archives and collections of correspondence, official and private, to provide a fresh and authoritative account of the men and logistics of this remarkable enterprise. An essential reference for anyone interested in early BC." - Richard Mackie, publisher, The British Columbia Review
"A sweeping narrative with compelling description of the routes, trails and roads of the fur trade. My family traveled the HBC brigade trails during the 1820s and 1830s. Anderson's comprehensive account of my ancestors' playground pleases me a lot." - Sam Pambrun
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