Birchbark Canoes
From a book titled Canoe Crossings, I learned that what made birchbark canoes so special was that the grain of the bark that covered them was transverse rather than longitudinal.…
Read moreBetsy Birnie
Betsy was the eldest daughter of James and Charlot Birnie, born in 1822 at the North West Company’s Spokane House. She was a toddler at Fort Okanogan. When she was…
Read moreGeorge Traill Allan
In 1841, George Traill Allan took out the York Factory Express to Hudson Bay, ten years after he had come into the territory in the 1831 Columbia Express. He is…
Read moreMichel Kaonassé
I fell into Michel Kaonassé’s story long before I knew how important it would be in my York Factory Express book. Kaonassé worked at Fort Alexandria under my great-grandfather Alexander…
Read moreThe HBC Post on the Stikine River, 1834
When Robert Campbell met the Stikine chief, “Shakes,” at the rendezvous in the mountains, he was unaware that Shakes had already frightened off another HBC man who was attempting to…
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