Shoes, Canoes, and Lives in Unexpected Archives: Searching in Fur Trade Ledgers beyond the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives

Abstract

This article illuminates the existence and utility of fur trade ledgers and account books held in repositories beyond those held in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. While the vast holdings of the HBCA are a phenomenal resource for researchers of the North American fur trade, many smaller repositories across the continent hold fur trade sources that can complement research conducted in other institutions. Such sources can, when examined with an eye to the cultural information they contain, reveal far more about the cultural history of North America than simply the economic data for which they were created.