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"Henry Kelsey is remembered for being the first European to travel from Hudson Bay to the territories of plains the Assiniboine and Cree as a young Hudson's Bay Company servant in 1690-91. He remained with the company for another thirty-one years, rising through the ranks to become its Governor of Hudson Bay five years before retiring under a cloud in 1722. Taking advantage of the opening of the Hudson's Bay Company's archives [HBCA] in the late 1960s and the voluminous new research in the fields of Indigenous and fur trade history, The Life and Times of Henry Kelsey, offers a new look at Kelsey's papers and includes his previously unpublished Swampy Cree-English dictionary. The image that emerges is of a skilled manager and, while governor, a strong, sometimes harsh, disciplinarian. This volume also provides us with some of our earliest glimpses in English of aspects of the lives and cultures of various Indigenous people from Hudson Bay-James Bay to the grasslands of the western interior of Canada."-- Provided by publisher

"From the age of thirteen to just prior to his death at thirty-two at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Major-General James Wolfe wrote an extensive series of letters to his parents. The letters, which were acquired by the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in 2012, provide intimate insights into the observations, thoughts, and feelings of a major figure in Canada's history. For the first time in over a century this correspondence, accompanied by detailed commentary, is being published by the Champlain Society. Writing on a range of subjects in this outstanding collection of over two hundred letters, Wolfe provides us with fascinating and intimate glimpses of eighteenth-century life as he experienced it. From his life and career aspirations in the army, to questions of human nature, health, and marriage, to observations Wolfe made while posted to Scotland and during a sojourn in Paris, his keen insights make for fascinating reading and a deeper understanding of the character and personality of a significant historical figure. This edition of Wolfe's letters will take readers far beyond the well-known drama of his final moments and instead provide an illuminating sense of the road he travelled to Quebec."-- Provided by publisher

"This volume traces the historical arc of Canada's national winter game from its "founding" in Montreal in the mid-1870s into the early twenty-first century. The evidence presented in this book reveals how deeply embedded hockey was among the peoples of post-Confederation Canada. Composed of more than 150 edited and annotated documents, the volume is organized into chapters based on ten central themes. "An Evolutionary Game" explores hockey's incremental growth. "A National Banner" demonstrates how English and French Canadians have used hockey to imagine themselves. "An Arena for Commerce" delineates hockey's long relationship with moneymaking. "An Essentially Violent Game" highlights the sport's reputation for roughness. "A National Problem" captures the discourse around hockey as an enemy to education, a source of labour exploitation, and a vehicle for Americanization. "A Question of Order, A Question of Character" examines the belief that hockey could generate respectable civic behaviour. "Hockey Talk" explores the technology and drama of hockey narration, and the concern in Quebec about hockey as a portal for anglicization. Hockey's "whiteness" is examined in "Race and Social Order" along with the challenges that Indigenous, Black and Asian players and teams made to that hegemony. "A Gendered Endeavour" pieces together the quest among women and girls to play on integrated and segregated teams, and to control their sport. Finally, "An International Calling Card" illuminates the mercurial history of "Team Canada," from the unmatched international power to one among many"-- Provided by publisher

"In the middle 1820s, as the sea otter trade of the Northwest Coast was fading, George Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in North America, resolved to enter the “coasting trade” with both ships and posts. He intended to out-compete the New England trading vessels for the coast’s land furs--especially beaver skins coming from the interior--by offering the native traders more goods. This volume examines the HBC’s efforts to establish an “opposition on the coast” to both the transient Yankees and the Russians at Sitka by securing suitable vessels, sober captains, saleable goods, and safe ports. These efforts culminated in an agreement with the Russian-American Company that in effect gave the Honourable Company a monopoly of the coast trade but at a time when the market for beaver was waning and the American shipowners were shifting to rosier Pacific prospects. This volume brings together the key documents that bear witness to that evolving relationship at a critical juncture in both the HBC’s history and that of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Coast, and describes and analyzes the people and events in a period that marked an important turning point in Settler-Indigenous relations."-- Provided by publisher.

• List of Figures
• List of Appendices
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: York Factory Journal, 1714-15
• Chapter 2: York Factory Journal, 1715-16
• Chapter 3: York FActory JOurnal, 1716-1717
• Epilogue: A Fatal End of a Dream
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index.

"In September 1714, Governor James Knight, who was in his early seventies and one of the most experienced men ever to assume command of a Hudson's Bay Company post, arrived at Fort Bourbon on the western shores of Hudson Bay to take possession of the twenty-year-old French fort. He renamed it York Fort and it is subsequently remembered as York Factory. Knight's daily journal during his tenure (1714-17) at the fort offers an extraordinary narrative about the harrowing struggles that he and his men faced in establishing themselves and surviving in the harsh environment. Unlike most company officers, Knight talked freely about his personal feelings, especially his bouts of depression, and his health problems. In so doing, Knight offers the reader of today a rare glimpse into how the stresses that post managers faced could affect their mental and physical health, thus their leadership abilities. Knight took every opportunity to interrogate his aboriginal trading partners about their territories and those of their neighbours and his journals thus provide us with our first information in English (and some misinformation) about many of the First Nations of Canada's prairie west and subarctic and Inuit groups of the Arctic. Because of his age and previous experience, Knight's journals also provide crucial insights into all aspects of the business during the early eighteenth century. He was not loath to criticize company management and to offer ways to improve the profitability of company operations. Not least, his narratives offer some of the earliest descriptions of the protocols of the trade (many of which were carried over into the treaty-making era in western Canada two centuries later) including the use of indigenous emissaries both to gain the loyalty of indigenous traders and to curtail inter-tribal warfare that interfered with the trade."-- Provided by publisher.

"With an introduction and annotations by David A. Sutherland, this volume features key documents from the Papers of the Halifax Relief Commission (HRC), which was established in the wake of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. The HRC was a quasi-governmental authority endowed with sweeping authority to implement a long-term program of reconstruction and rehabilitation to improve the qualify of life for the people of Halifax and neighbouring Dartmouth. This volume focuses on the operations of the HRC's Rehabilitation Department through the formative period of 1918-1919, when pioneer social workers from major cities in both Canada and the United States were recruited to set up an administrative structure that could provide disaster victims with assistance. Decision-making about who was most deserving and what form relief should take became matters of controversy. A key feature of the case-file transcriptions that make up the bulk of this volume is the extent to which they give voice to the common people of Halifax as they struggled to rebuild. By bringing to light the documents left by the HRC, this volume will deepen the understanding of Haligonians whose lives were transformed by the unprecedented explosion."-- Provided by publisher.

"Based on a study of the 6,700 editorials published in Le Devoir during the Henri Bourassa years (1910-32), this volume seeks to outline the ideological positions defended by Bourassa as French-Canadian nationalism was emerging for the first time in full force. During these two decades, Le Devoir was instrumental in defining the place of French speakers in Canada and in spelling out their aspirations as a separate people within the federation. The book is an anthology of sixty of the most significant editorials, translated into English, each situated in its historical context by the editor, historian Pierre Anctil. Examined together, the editorials offer a global picture of the evolution of French Canada at a crucial time in its history. They also paint a clear image of the tensions that emerged between Francophone and Anglophone Canada shortly after the signing of Confederation and at the turn of the twentieth century."-- Provided by publisher.

O.D. Skelton: The Work of the World, 1923-1941 is a lively and compelling trip through the letters, diary entries, and official memoranda of O.D. Skelton, one of the most important and influential civil servants in twentieth-century Canada. Skelton was a towering foreign policy advisor to Canada's prime ministers and a lonely advocate for the country's independence from Great Britain. His accounts detail his work as he co-operated and clashed with William Lyon Mackenzie King and R.B. Bennett over Canada's participation in the international arena. Norman Hillmer's selection and assessment of Skelton's writings offer a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the federal government as Skelton systematically built up the Department of External Affairs and the Canadian diplomatic service as instruments of the national interest, confronted the Manchurian, Ethiopian, and Czech crises of the 1930s, aligned himself with senior francophone politicians such as Ernest Lapointe and Raoul Dandurand, and watched in despair as Europe and Asia descended into war. Providing avenues into a time when Canada was struggling to define itself, this collection shows the ways in which O.D. Skelton pushed the country onto the global stage.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• V. 1. The voyages : Voyages (1668)
• I. To the Mohawk, 1652-53
• II. To the Onondaga, 1657-58
• III. To Lake Michigan, 1654-56
• IV. To Lake Superior and James Bay, 1659-60
• Appendix: Radisson in an Aboriginal World / Heidi Bohaker
• V. 2. Port Nelson relations, miscellaneous writings, and related documents.

Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636-1710) was many men. He was a teenager captured, tortured, and adopted by the Mohawk, and a youth relishing the freedom of the wilderness. He was the French-born servant of an ambitious English trading company and a hapless petitioner at the court of Louis XIV. He was a central figure in the tug-of-war between France and England over Hudson Bay and a pretender to aristocratic status who had to defend his actions before James II. Finally, he was a retired "sea captain" trying to provide for his children, and despite the pension he had fought for, the "decay'd Gentleman" described in his burial record. Radisson's writings, characterized by hubris and contradiction, provoke many questions. Was he a semi-literate woodsman? Are his accounts of Native life ethnographically reliable? Can he be trusted to tell the truth about himself? How important were his explorations? All these questions are raised in this first critical edition of Radisson's writings in both English and French, which includes previously unknown documents. Volume 1 follows Radisson's account of the decade he spent, in part with his brother-in-law Medard Des Groseilliers, exploring far into the interior of North America. In Volume 2, Radisson recounts his part in the battle over possession of Hudson Bay waged in the 1680s by England and France, his difficulties at the French and English courts, and his struggle with the Hudson's Bay Company for his just reward. Striking a superb balance between accessible writing and comprehensive scholarship, this new edition of Radisson's writing is indispensable, definitive, and reasserts the important roles that Radisson played in seventeenth-century North American rivalries.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636?-1710) was many men. He was a teenager captured, tortured, and adopted by the Mohawk and he was a youth relishing the freedom of the wilderness. He was the French-born servant of an ambitious English trading company and a hapless petitioner at the court of Louis XIV. He was a central figure in the tug-of-war between France and England over Hudson Bay and a pretender to aristocratic status who had to defend his actions before James II. Finally, he was a retired "sea captain" trying to provide for his children, and despite the pension he had fought for, he was the "decay'd Gentleman" described in his burial record. Radisson's writings, characterized in parts by hubris and in others by contradiction, provoke many questions. Was he a semi-literate woodsman? Are his accounts of Native life ethnographically reliable? Can he be trusted to tell the truth about himself? How important were his explorations? All these questions are raised in this first critical edition of Radisson's writings in both English and French, which includes three previously unknown documents. While Pierre-Esprit Radisson remains a North American icon, the interpretation of his career presents a vexing historical problem: who in fact was this "mercurial genius?" Germaine Warkentin's richly annotated new edition of Radisson's writings brings us closer to an answer. Germaine Warkentin is professor emeritus of English, University of Toronto and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636?-1710) was many men. He was a teenager captured, tortured, and adopted by the Mohawk, and a youth relishing the freedom of the wilderness. He was the French-born servant of an ambitious English trading company and a hapless petitioner at the court of Louis XIV. He was a central figure in the tug-of-war between France and England over Hudson Bay and a pretender to aristocratic status who had to defend his actions before James II. Finally, he was a retired "sea captain" trying to provide for his children, and despite the pension he had fought for, the "decay'd Gentleman" described in his burial record. Radisson's writings, characterized by hubris and contradiction, provoke many questions. Was he a semi-literate woodsman? Are his accounts of Native life ethnographically reliable? Can he be trusted to tell the truth about himself? How important were his explorations? In this first volume of Radisson's complete writings, Germaine Warkentin introduces the life, travels, motivations, and work of this compelling and complicated figure while providing a comprehensive and authoritative edition of his masterpiece - The Voyages. In the four accounts of his travels to the far interior of the Great Lakes and James Bay, Radisson vibrantly depicts his life among the Mohawk, his encounters and relationships with Native peoples, Jesuits, English, French, and Dutch colonists and traders, as well as the hazards of the capricious politics of the New World and the thrilling surprise of discoveries. Striking a superb balance between accessible writing and comprehensive scholarship, this new edition of Radisson's Voyages is indispensable, definitive, and reasserts the important roles that Radisson played in seventeenth-century North American rivalries.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The French explorer, surveyor, cartographer, and diplomat Samuel de Champlain (c. 1575-1635) is often called the Father of New France for founding the settlement that became Quebec City, governing New France, and mapping much of the St. Lawrence and eastern Great Lakes region. Champlain was also a prolific writer who documented his experiences in the Americas, including his travels, impressions of the New World, and encounters and alliances with native peoples. Samuel de Champlain before 1604 is the definitive edition of the early documents by or about Champlain, correcting numerous errors contained in previous publications. Providing the documents in both English translation and the original French or Spanish, this meticulous, fastidiously researched work includes a comprehensive introduction that provides biographical information, details about Champlain's early career as aide to the quartermaster of Henri IV's army in Brittany and his connections at court, the military and political context underlying French imperialism, and the royal policies that allowed trade and colonization in the Americas. This stunning scholarly achievement will set the historical record straight and be an invaluable resource for decades to come.
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1799 to 1825 letters between Elizabeth Frances Hale of Quebec City and her brother William, Lord Amherst, Governor General of India. The letters are stylish, witty, dramatic, and intimate. We learn much of the nature of Quebec society during the Napoleonic Wars and the rise of nationalistic fervour. The Society has published 100 titles since 1907 covering the major exploration and surveyors' journals. 25 titles are in print and available.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A political biography of Robert Rice Reynolds, US senator from North Carolina from 1933-1945. It seeks to rescue the eccentric Reynolds from his cartoon character reputation, explaining his political appeal and highlighting his genuine contributions without overlooking his flaws.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)