Hudson Bay, or, Everyday Life in the Wilds of North America, During Six Years’ Residence in the Territories of the Hon. Hudson Bay Company

Hardcover, 367 pages, 5x7 in - 12x18 cm, B&W illustrations.

Bright blue boards soiled, stained in places, and rubbed at edges. Corners bumped and rubbed through to boards. Cocked spine sunned, bumped at head and heel, with cloth spliting along parts of back joint. Edges (esp. top edge) and pages tanned. Free endpapers discolored, frontispiece recto inscribed by previous owners, light foxing to rear vacat pages. Ffep., title page, and p.15 stamped by previous owner. Spine cracked throughout, up to pp.80 especially tender.

Before Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825-1894) became a prolific Scottish juvenile fiction author, he spent 1841-1847 working as a clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company in present-day Ontario and Manitoba. In this volume, Ballantyne recalls his life and adventures in the fur trade. With considerable detail he describes his sea journey to York Factory, his postings to the Red River Colony and Norway House, and his travels along the Great Lakes. The volume is particularly rich in its attention to the mundane dimensions – clothing worn, daily chores, meals prepared – of fur trade life. To familiarize readers to his work and environment, Ballantyne also includes descriptions of the HBC and the First Nations peoples with whom it traded. See Peel(3) 241 for editions.