The HBC Brigades: Culture, conflict and perilous journeys of the fur trade

by Nancy Marguerite Anderson

$24.95

• June 2024
• print ISBN: 978-1553807018
• 6″ x 9″ Trade paper, 280 pages
• Maps and black & white images
• Nonfiction, History

National Bestseller: BC Bestseller List, Toronto Star Bestseller list

A lively recounting of the gruelling thousand-mile trail faced by the brigades of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

“A fine book with crisp writing nicely balanced between the author’s voice and the journals of the HBC men.” – BC BookWorld

“Nancy Marguerite Anderson offers a detailed analysis of early trails and river routes supporting the British Columbia fur trade. British Columbia was not a canoe frontier. Rather, company business largely came to depend on horse brigades. Significant to all this history were Indigenous politics, interests, and personalities. Anderson’s book reminds readers that the HBC’s business in British Columbia was both in fur and brigade work. The book’s detailed maps will delight readers familiar with current BC topographical points and highway systems.” – BC Studies

“With vivid prose and historical sensitivity, this fine book takes the reader over rugged mountains and along raging rivers that challenged men, horses, and boats. Enlivened by the words of the explorers who established the trails and the brigade leaders who used them, the text is further enhanced by pertinent illustrations and excellent maps.” – Tom Holloway, fur trade historian

“Historically accurate and engaging narratives that connect us all to our diffuse and yet collective past. Herself having deep family roots in the fur-trade and possessing a penchant for story-telling, Anderson’s work is a gift that must be read to be appreciated.” – Bruce McIntyre Watson, author of Lives Lived West of the Divide

“Anderson has mined obscure archives and collections of correspondence, official and private, to provide a fresh and authoritative account of the men and logistics of this remarkable enterprise. An essential reference for anyone interested in early BC.” – Richard Mackie, publisher, The British Columbia Review

“A sweeping narrative with compelling description of the routes, trails and roads of the fur trade. My family traveled the HBC brigade trails during the 1820s and 1830s. Anderson’s comprehensive account of my ancestors’ playground pleases me a lot.” – Sam Pambrun

But it wasn’t just the demanding landscape the brigades faced as First Nations people struggled with the desire to resist, or assist, the fur company’s attempts to build their brigade trails over the Aboriginal trails that led between Indigenous communities, which surrounded the trading posts. Nancy Marguerite Anderson, author of The York Factory Express, recounts how the devastating Cayuse War of 1847 forced the HBC men over a newly-explored overland trail to Fort Langley. The journey was a disaster in waiting.