The Canadian Fur Trade in the Industrial Age

Excerpt from Introduction, Page xvii-xviii:

"To what extent did the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fur Trade Department undergo a metamorphosis as the industrial age advanced in Canada and the organization diversified? What kinds of business innovations did the newcomers introduce? How did changes in the industry and the company affect native peoples?

I shall address these central issues by focusing on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s activities in the central Subarctic – the core area of its traditional operations covering nearly one-half of Canada. Although the Hudson’s Bay Company expanded into the arctic during the second half of this period, space precludes an extended discussion of this move and its impact on the Inuit. Highlighted are the ways in which international, national, and regional economic developments influenced the subarctic fur trade and the company’s fortunes within it.

The major developments I consider include the diversification of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the increasing involvement of the state in Department of Indian Affairs, the maturation of the North American industrial economy and the concomitant shift of the centre of global economic power from England to the United States, the integration of regional markets through improvements in transportation and communication technologies, and the impacts of the two world wars. I shall address these topics in ways that clarify the geography of change.

Although the focus is on the company rather than native peoples, non the less this study does have great relevance for their history. Ultimately it challenges the commonly held notion that continuities of native traditions between 1870 and 1945 are largely to be explained in terms of a stable fur industry." (xvii-xviii).