The Historical Society of Alberta has just published the book, Edmonton House Journals, about a period of the Canadian fur trade that took place almost 200 years ago.
The book contains Hudson’s Bay Company diaries and reports, known as Edmonton House Journals, that were kept by the chief traders at Fort Edmonton, from the years 1821 to 1826.
According to an Edmonton Journal article, “The early 1820s were a turning point for Edmonton. The Hudson’s Bay Company and its rival, the Montreal-based North West Company, had just merged. The HBC decided the North Saskatchewan would be their primary route in and out of this region. And Edmonton assumed a new prominence.”
The original Edmonton House Journals were transcribed and edited by Gerhard Ens, a professor of fur trade history at the University of Alberta, and his colleague Ted Binnema, a history professor from the University of Northern British Columbia.
“After 1823, Edmonton’s importance is really heightened,” said Professor Ens to the Edmonton Journal. “It’s when the fur trade here is at its height. Furs from as far away as Wyoming and Utah find their way to Edmonton House.”
The society said the book’s editors “provide what is perhaps the most comprehensive overall history currently available of what is now south-central Alberta during the early part of the nineteenth century.”
Here’s an excerpt from the Edmonton Journal article:
Edmonton House in 1821 had about 100 Hudson Bay Company employees. About half came from Europe, most from the Orkney Islands, some from the Scottish Highlands and a few, like Feistel, from the continent. Only about a dozen would have been English.
About half were “Canadians” — which meant French Canadian — and another dozen or so were Métis, the sons of a previous generation of traders.
HBC employees also had their families — their indigenous wives, their children, their in-laws — bringing the number of people living inside the trading post to about 3oo. And on any given day, there might be another 300 or 400 First Nations hunters and trappers camped nearby.
Read more in the Edmonton Journal article, Edmonton history boring? Not in authentic, rum-soaked voices of the fur trade past.
Thank you Gail for gathering and sharing historical topics. I enjoy receiving your genealogy news blog.
Thanks for your feedback, Sheila.
Hello…. also check out another book I found very interesting, “Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur Trade Society, 1670 – 1870
Sounds very interesting. Thanks for the tip.