Fort St. James and New Caledonia: Where British Columbia Began
by Marie Elliott
Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-55017-478-6, 270 pp., $26.95 paper.

Fort St. James and New Caledonia: Where British Columbia Began is an absorbing book that evokes the spirit of enterprise and adventure that animated the early history of BC. Author Marie Elliott is a BC popular historian; this is her second book.

Elliott has written a chronological narrative depicting the development of the fur trade in New Caledonia (which became British Columbia in 1858) from the early nineteenth century until well into the twentieth.

One of her main themes is the role of the Native people in the fur trade. The cooperation of Natives, she shows, was integral to the success of the trade as it was pursued by the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company (the two rival outfits merged in the early 1820s).

Certainly, Natives assisted the European traders by acting as guides and interpreters. They also served as dog train handlers and couriers. Natives built canoes and made snowshoes, moccasins, and other items of clothing for the traders. Moreover, the European traders stationed at the various posts in the interior of what became British Columbia relied on Natives for food--game and fish.

Elliott underscores the many occasions of cooperation between Natives and fur traders; however, her own narrative reveals that the relationship was not always so simple. Indeed, she documents numerous instances of friction between Natives and newcomers. These tensions often led to loss of life, on both sides.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this book is Elliott's depiction of daily life at the fur trade posts. During the summer, when furs were shipped east, the men who remained at the posts were assigned such tasks as building maintenance and gardening. In winter, the post employees stayed inside, keeping warm beside smoking fireplaces. At one fort, games of chess, whist, and backgammon provided diversion on long winter evenings.

The main staple of diet at the fur trade forts during the winter was dried salmon. The tediousness of this diet made recruiting employees difficult. It was not until much later in the nineteenth century that beef became readily available, introducing much welcome variety to the diet.

Elliott also examines the lives of women at the trading posts, primarily the wives of Hudson's Bay Company managers. While there is scant written record detailing the activities of women, the evidence that does exist shows that women worked hard at the forts. One manager's wife, for example, cleaned out the men's living quarters and the store, milked the cows, fed the chickens, and tended to the garden. A highlight for women at the forts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Elliott says, was the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company catalogues, from which the latest fashions could be ordered.

Marie Elliott has produced a well-researched account that can be recommended to anyone interested in the fur trade in Canadian history.

Graeme Voyer is a Winnipeg writer.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.

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