The English River Book (A North West Company Journal and Account Book of 1786)

The arrival of Montreal-based fur trader Peter Pond in Athabasca territory in 1778 and the establishment of the first trading post within the watershed of the Mackenzie River marked the beginning of a period of intense northern exploration. Alexander Mackenzie’s voyages to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans quickly brought the Canadian northwest to European attention.

Full of colourful anecdotes, The English River Book provides a day-to-day record of trade at Fort Athabasca in April 1786 under Pond’s direction. In addition to listing those who worked and traded in the area, the journal catalogues duties, wages, stations, inventories of commonplace and mysterious goods, a Cree trading vocabulary, and many other details about the English River district of 1785 and 1786. Familiar figures appear, such as Joseph Cartier, an interpreter whose fur-trading career lasted almost sixty years, and Joseph Landry and Charles Doucette, the Acadian voyageurs who a few years later guided Mackenzie to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

An active working journal rather than the reminiscence of a retired trader, The English River Book recounts romantic lore of the fur trade and the adventurous lives of traders, on the spot and in the heat of events. A new preface by the author and a new foreword by Jennifer S.H. Brown bring the document into historical context and contemporary relevance.