Devil’s Club
You may wonder why I am beginning a post with this subject — wonder no longer. Devil’s Club is a poisonous plant that grows everywhere in the province of B.C.,…
Read moreTwo Canoes: The “Big Hill”
In his journal it appears that John Work, and his incoming party, has just passed the Council’s Punch Bowl when they “Encamped in the afternoon near what is called the…
Read moreTwo Canoes: To Athabasca Pass
In the eighteenth post in the Two Canoes series, at http://nancymargueriteanderson.com/two-canoes-eighteen/ John Work and Peter Skene Ogden traveled through Jasper Valley to the Grande Traverse on the Whirlpool River, where…
Read moreSnowshoeing
The HBC’s “Rupertsland” was a land of winter, and for the HBC men snow-shoes were essential. At some point in their lives, every man who worked for the HBC (and…
Read moreYork Factory Express: Crossing of the Continental Divide to the West
In this nineteenth leg of the long journey to Hudson Bay and return, I am going to post James Douglas’s 1835 journal. For me it is the most interesting, as…
Read more