The early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company comes alive in these true tales of fur-trade wars, incredible wilderness journeys, hardships and danger. Founded by the extraordinary adventurers and renegades Radisson and des Groseilliers, the HBC attracted many memorable characters. Explorer Henry Kelsey was the first European to see the buffalo herds. James Knight met a mysterious fate on a frozen northern island. Brave Isabel Gunn worked in the fur trade disguised as a man. Anyone who enjoys historical adventure will relish these exciting stories of Canada’s oldest company.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A thrilling new telling of the story of modern Canada's origins. The story of the Hudson's Bay Company, dramatic and adventurous and complex, is the story of modern Canada's creation. And yet it hasn't been told in a book for over thirty years, and never in such depth and vivid detail as in Stephen R. Bown's exciting new telling. The Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the Indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people--from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific northwest. It transformed the culture and economy of many Indigenous groups and ended up as the most important political and economic force in northern and western North America. When the Company was faced with competition from French traders in the 1780s, the result was a bloody corporate battle, the coming of Governor George Simpson--one of the greatest villains in Canadian history--and the Company assuming political control and ruthless dominance. By the time its monopoly was rescinded after two hundred years, the Hudson's Bay Company had reworked the entire northern North American world. Stephen R. Bown has a scholar's profound knowledge and understanding of the Company's history, but wears his learning lightly in a narrative as compelling, and rich in well-drawn characters, as a page-turning novel.

WINNER OF THE 2020 RBC TAYLOR PRIZE • "Readers might well wonder if Jonathan Swift at his edgiest has been at work."—RBC Taylor Prize Jury Citation • "A remarkable biography of an even more remarkable 17th-century individual ... Beautifully written and endlessly thought-provoking."—Maclean’s Murderer. Salesman. Pirate. Adventurer. Cannibal. Co-founder of the Hudson's Bay Company. Known to some as the first European to explore the upper Mississippi, and widely as the namesake of ships and hotel chains, Pierre-Esprit Radisson is perhaps best described, writes Mark Bourrie, as “an eager hustler with no known scruples.” Kidnapped by Mohawk warriors at the age of fifteen, Radisson assimilated and was adopted by a powerful family, only to escape to New York City after less than a year. After being recaptured, he defected from a raiding party to the Dutch and crossed the Atlantic to Holland—thus beginning a lifetime of seized opportunities and frustrated ambitions. A guest among First Nations communities, French fur traders, and royal courts; witness to London’s Great Plague and Great Fire; and unwitting agent of the Jesuits’ corporate espionage, Radisson double-crossed the English, French, Dutch, and his adoptive Mohawk family alike, found himself marooned by pirates in Spain, and lived through shipwreck on the reefs of Venezuela. His most lasting venture as an Artic fur trader led to the founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which operates today, 350 years later, as North America’s oldest corporation. Sourced from Radisson’s journals, which are the best first-hand accounts of 17th century Canada, Bush Runner tells the extraordinary true story of this protean 17th-century figure, a man more trading partner than colonizer, a peddler of goods and not worldview—and with it offers a fresh perspective on the world in which he lived.

The early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company comes alive in these true tales of fur-trade wars, incredible wilderness journeys, hardships and danger. Founded by the extraordinary adventurers and renegades Radisson and des Groseilliers, the HBC attracted many memorable characters. Explorer Henry Kelsey was the first European to see the buffalo herds. James Knight met a mysterious fate on a frozen northern island. Brave Isabel Gunn worked in the fur trade disguised as a man. Anyone who enjoys historical adventure will relish these exciting stories of Canada’s oldest company.

Shaping the destiny of Canada, the merchant founders of the Hudson's Bay Company tamed the wilderness as they built the world's largest private commerical empire. A brilliant story chronicling the unsung heroes of North American history.

Published to great reviews in Canada, the US and the UK, Ancient Mariner tells the riveting story of how Samuel Hearne—a sailor at 12, a northern explorer at 24, an admirer of Native peoples—became the first European to reach the Arctic coast of North America. Yet, as Ken McGoogan reveals, Samuel Hearne’s place in the history books has been a subject hotly disputed over the past two centuries. This fascinating saga, a skillful blend of literary detective work and finely imagined narrative, delights and surprises as it restores Hearne’s rightful place in history.