Archives.

Hudson’s Bay Company.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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The archives, now in Winnipeg, has a mss. catalogue of the HBC library, ca1800s and later, described as a memorandum book with index at front and tabs used to list the books; lists of books borrowed by borrower (mostly committee members but includes Beechey, Franklin, and Richardson, and dates of loan. (The following list courtesy of Ann Morton, HBC)

Copy-book of Letters Outward &c. begins…. 1679-1694.

Hudson’s Bay Company. Edited by E. E. Rich. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1948). [Hudson’s Bay Record Society, v. 11].
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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This is a large and impressive compilation from the London office of the Company in London to Company officials in Lord Rupert’s land during the early years of the Company. The period includes the brief French capture of the Prince of Wales Fort at Churchill.

James Isham’s Observations on Hudsons Bay, 1743 and Notes and Observations on a Book Entitled

Isham, James. A Voyage to Hudsons Bay in the Dobbs Galley, 1749.Edited with an Introduction by E. E. Rich. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1949.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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James Isham was employed by the HBC from 1732 and as chief of Fort York from 1737, According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Volume III) “Isham was at once a skilled and understanding trader, a perceptive planner and strategist, and a conscientious and observant natural historian.” He was not an expert on the fur trading business, but he did develop expertise in the subject of Indian vocabularies

The Founding of Churchill; Being the Journal of Captain James Knight, Governor-in-Chief in Hudson Bay, from the 14th of July to the 13th of September 1717.

Knight, James, Capt. Edited…by James F. Kenney. Toronto, London: J. M. Dent, 1932.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Interest of this book is not so much for his journal, but the account in the text by Kenney of the fate of Captain Knight. After he left the HBC governorship, he organized an expedition to the west coast of Hudson Bay in search of copper and gold (cf. Frobisher and Borchgrevink), as well as for the NW Passage. Evidently his ships were damaged on the western shore of Marble Island where after two winters all the crew had died, facts which did not come to light for some time. Since he made this voyage without telling the local HBC about his activities, he was not likely to be found. (see esp. p. 75-89).

Peter Fidler’s Library: Philosophy and Science in Rupert’s Land.

Lindsay, Debra. Readings in Canadian Library History. Edited by Peter F. McNally. (Toronto: Canadian Library Association, 1986). p. 209-29.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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p. 209: Peter Fidler, Hudson’s Bay Company servant [surveyor] 1788-1822, was one of the first owners and collectors of books in Rupert’s Land. His penchant for books was not an isolated case of individualism gone berserk, but his permanent acquisition of vast numbers of books was a unique occurrence in Rupert’s Land…. Fidler’s library eventually reached five hundred volumes, a massive collection for a man of modest means.

Peter Fidler: Canada’s Forgotten Surveyor 1769-1822.

MacGregor, J. G. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Fidler was a rather obscure surveyor and mapmaker of English birth, who served the Hudson’s Bay Company for over thirty years, just beyond the 1820 amalgamation of the HBC with the North West Company. His interest here is that he was instrumental in buying books for the HBC to send from London to their various posts in Canada. This volume is confined to Fidler’s full journals of his travels for his surveying career. They make little of Fidler’s book life, but it does not that he build a personal collection of 500 volumes which he left to the Red River Colony. He had fourteen children by an illiterate Metis woman whom he finally married. He is someone you’d like to meet. Though he suffered through some very hard times he seems to have met them with a stoic resolve, and he died a rather rich man after years of £100 pay per year.

Samuel Hearne & the Landscapes of Discovery.

Maclaren, I. S. Canadian Literature No. 103 (1984) 27-40.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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In seeking the sublime and picturesque Hearn found in the northern landscape “what he had been taught to look for.” A landscape of barren hills and open marshes is appropriate for the barbarity of Hearne’s account.

“Samuel Hearne’s Accounts of the Massacre at Bloody Fall, 17 July 1771”

Maclaren, I. S. Ariel No. 1 (1991) 25-51.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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By comparing Hearne’s field notes to the posthumous published vision of Hearne’s Journey, Maclaren calls into question the later Hearne account of the young woman at Bloody Fall. George Back was the first to call it into question. The horrid elaboration comes in the published version, not before, and indicates a good deal of editorial meddling. In his notes Hearne is only a neutral onlooker; in publication he is a reluctant participant.

Igloo for the Night.

Manning, Ella Wallace. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1943.
  • 1938 Hudson Bay Voyage of Nascopie.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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R.M.S. Nascopiewas the chief supply ship of the Hudson’s Bay Company with 34 annual visits to Northern Arctic outposts coming through Hudson Strait from the UK until 1933 when it was reassigned to Montreal.

The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic.

Maurice, Edward Beauclerk. Foreword by Lawrence Millman. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
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Delightful book about an HBC agent who at 20 was assigned alone to Pangnirtung and Frobisher Bay where he successfully assimilated to Inuit culture.