Fur Trade Wars: The Founding of Western Canada

Fritz Pannekoek is an associate professor of heritage studies and
director of information resources at the University of Calgary. He is
also the author of A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel
Resistance of 1869–70.

The thesis of this book on the origins of Manitoba’s Red River
settlement is that “western Canada as it developed was a direct legacy
of the often bloody conflict of the period 1811–1821.”
Unfortunately, the author fails to establish how the events of that
decade gave rise to the problems of the next 50 years. Even more
problematic is his inability to personalize the Métis, who were so
critical to the destiny of the West. In his analysis of Seven Oaks,
Bumsted seems to accept recent interpretations of the event—that it
was an unintended conflict between two armed camps—while ignoring the
impact of the “battle” on Métis self-perception, as well as on
Canada’s perceptions of the West. While the book offers some insight
into the characters of the key European players, it tends to marginalize
the Métis—a marginalization symbolized by Bumsted’s use of a
lowercase “m” in Métis (is this an inadvertent denigration, or is
there an interpretative purpose behind it?).

Criticisms aside, Bumsted tells a compelling story, and he is to be
commended for providing historians with a lucid and comprehensive
account of the facts of the fur trade wars.