Nancy Marguerite Anderson
The book cover for my book, The HBC Brigades, which was published by Ronsdale Press in July, 2024.
I am Nancy Marguerite Anderson; an accidental historian writing the stories of the HBC men who worked west of the Rocky Mountains before 1858 — so many good stories!
The HBC Brigades: Culture, Conflict, & Perilous Journeys…
Brigade trail history began in the early years, when the first Nor’Westers, Simon Fraser and John Stuart, explored the territory they called New Caledonia (north central British Columbia.) The stories continue until the gold rush, when American gold-miners invaded the Fraser River. It’s only 50 years, more or less: but many significant changes took place in what is now British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest in the years between 1805 and 1858.
I opened The HBC Brigades with this image of a packer who is following the HBC’s brigade trails north to the goldfields in 1859.
A man stood on a flat of land overlooking the frozen Fraser River, watching as its icy surface shifted and broke in the sun. He heard tremendous explosions that echoed through the deep valley as large cracks shot across the ice. A short time later, the well-worn footpath that crossed the river to the Hudson’s Bay Company post on the opposite bank began to crumble as the ice broke into large chunks that were swept away by the Fraser’s strong current, spreading chaos and ruin everywhere.
That afternoon, while the brown Fraser still rumbled with the noise of the ice’s passing, the first bateaux of the New Caledonia brigades rushed downriver, the flat-bottom boats filled with Métis and Canadian voyageurs pulling the long oars. All was noise and chaos once again as the men in what their observer called their “wild mountain dress” leaped ashore and pulled the bateaux onto the beach below the fort. The men from the post ran down to greet them, and all worked together to unload the precious cargo from the boats. Soon hundreds of leather-wrapped packs of furs lay in piles on the beach.
I knew little of John Stuart when I began to write this book: but he was important to our history, and I found him a very likeable man. Here is John Stuart’s story: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/john-stuart/
And here is the story of the gold-rush of 1858: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/fraser-river-goldrush/
The HBC Brigades was published by Ronsdale Press [in Vancouver, BC] in July, 2024.
A book review for The HBC Brigades can be found here: https://bcstudies.com/book_review/the-hbc-brigades-culture-conflict-and-perilous-journeys-in-the-fur-trade/
The HBC Brigades can be ordered from Amazon at https://amazon.com/author/nancymargueriteanderson
Canadians can also order the book here: https://ronsdalepress.com/products/hbc-brigades-the/
The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849
The thirty or so men who travelled out in the York Factory Express began their journey at Fort Vancouver, the HBC’s Columbia River headquarters, 100 miles east of the rugged points of land where the Columbia River rumbled into the Pacific Ocean. The express-men paddled their clinker-built boats up the rock- and rapids-filled Columbia to the base of the Rocky Mountains at Boat Encampment, 900 miles east and north of Fort Vancouver. The men literally pulled their boats upriver, for their camp at Boat Encampment was more than 1,500 feet above sea level. They then climbed over the Rocky Mountains on foot. At Jasper’s House, on the east side of the Rockies, they were 3,000 feet above sea level. Their river route eastward would return them to salt water once more, at York Factory on the shores of Hudson Bay. It was an amazing climb and an amazing descent, and they would do another climb and descent on their journey home.
But the York Factory Express was more complicated than a difficult climb over the Rocky Mountains, followed by a relatively easy drift down the Athabasca and North Saskatchewan Rivers. It was also a carefully timed journey, as the gentlemen were to attend the annual meeting at Red River or Norway House, where they delivered their district accounts to the governor and council of the Hudson’s Bay Company. They left Fort Vancouver in time to cross Athabasca Pass in the early spring, while the snow underfoot was solid and the weather generally good. They reached the Athabasca River when its ice was mostly melted. At the point where the Athabasca flowed as far south as it would go, they abandoned their canoes and boats and crossed the land portage to Edmonton House.
More transformations occurred as they reached Edmonton House. At that prairie headquarters the fast-travelling, lightly laden express party joined the Saskatchewan District’s slow-moving brigades that lumbered down the North Saskatchewan River, passing through rolling grasslands. The express-men had feasted on biscuits, potatoes, and salmon west of the Rockies; now they gorged on pemmican, bison steaks, and whitefish on the east side of the mountains….
The York Factory Express: Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay, 1826-1849, was published by Ronsdale Press in 2023.
You can purchase The York Factory Express from Amazon (contact above), or from me: you can also purchase it from the publisher at https://ronsdalepress.com/products/york-factory-express-the/
Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2025. All rights reserved.
This promises to be some excellent reading, thanks for posting.
Thank you.