French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest

Description

Jean Barman rewrites the history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of French Canadians involved in the fur economy, the Indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants.
For half a century, French Canadians were the region’s largest group of newcomers – facilitating the early overland crossings, driving the fur economy, initiating non-wholly-Indigenous agricultural settlement, easing relations with Indigenous peoples, and ensuring that, when the region was divided in 1846, the northern half would go to Britain, giving today’s Canada its Pacific shoreline.