North of Athabasca: Slave Lake and Mackenzie River Documents of the North West Company, 1800-1821

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

One of the great mysteries of Canadian historiography is why Canadian
fur trade historians produce so many massive “path of the great
explorers” volumes. This exhaustive—and exhausting—book is no
exception. North of Athabasca contains an edited version of key journals
(produced in the Ft. Chipewyan–Mackenzie River area between 1800 and
1820) by James Porter, John Thomson, Alexander McKenzie, Alexander
Henry, George Keith, and W.F. Wentzel. (Most of these journals are
already available either in print or in archival form.) The editor’s
introduction is little more than a careful unraveling of the chronology
of events. It does not offer advice on how to use the text in gender
studies or in ethnohistory. Nor does it seriously address the incredible
amount of violence evidenced in the journals (Keith dismisses this
violence as an aberration). Finally, the biographies are slanted,
focusing on males and Euro-Canadians at the expense of females and
Aboriginals.