From Ruperts Land To Canada

Dr. John E. Foster spent many years researching and interpreting the Metis, continually re-examining his own thinking about the fur trade and the West, trying to find new lines of inquiry across disciplinary boundaries, and, playing with ideas that re-imagined the Canadian West. In From Rupert's Land to Canada, in tribute to John's work, his friends and colleagues further explore themes related to "Native History and the Fur Trade," "Metis History," and the "Imagined West". Contributors include Michael Payne, Nicole St-Onge, Jan Grabowski, Jennifer Brown, Heather Rollason, Frits Pannekoek, Heather Devine, Gerhard Ens, Gerry Friesen, Ted Binnema, Ian MacLaren, Rod Macleod, Tom Flanagan and Glen Campbell.

This book interrogates how districts were used in British North America to inspect, and document indigenous people by the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). In particular, it examines how the HBC utilized districts to create a political geography that allowed for closer surveillance of indigenous people and stabilized debt. An initial examination of how the district was used to rework earlier 18th-century conducts of observation into the more ordered and spatially limited regime of inspection is undertaken, followed by an investigation of how the district became central to the HBC’s efforts to limit the movement of indigenous people, individualize hunters, and spur ‘industriousness’. The book points to how districts became key to a number of colonial projects, laying the infrastructure for the modern reserve system in Canada. In this sense, the book provides a critical genealogy of how the command of space and social vision shaped Canada’s colonial geography.

"Rupert's Land, or Prince Rupert's Land, was a territory in British North America, consisting mostly of the Hudson Bay drainage basin that was nominally owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870, although numerous aboriginal groups lived in the same territory and disputed the sovereignty of the area. The area once known as Rupert's Land is now mainly a part of Canada, but a small portion is now in the United States of America. It was named after Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a nephew of Charles I and the first Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. In December 1821 the HBC monopoly was extended from Rupert's Land to the Pacific coast. Areas once belonging to Rupert's Land include all of Manitoba, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southern Nunavut, and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec, as well as parts of Minnesota and North Dakota and very small parts of Montana and South Dakota."--Wikiped, April 2013

A collection of letters that document the experiences of a 'lowland' Scottish family in North America, as well as happenings at the administrative center of the Hudson's Bay Company fur trade.

Tells of life as Hudson's Bay clerk during late 1800's.

Isobel thinks that she and her family will find their fortune in Canada. But Isobel's mother dies before they even cross the ocean, and other misfortunes follow their every step. Isobel's family and the other Selkirk Settlers are caught in the fur-trading rivalry between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company and cannot even start to build when they do reach their destination. The harsh climate, and escalating threats against the settlers, make it impossible to start a new life. Only through perserverance and help from the local Cree band are Isobel and her family finally able to put down roots in the Red River Valley. Vetted by historical experts, each book in this series contains maps, numerous period illustrations, and an extensive historical note.