By Dorthea H. CalverleyBy birth, Simon Fraser was a second generation Yankee, whose grandparents lived in Bennington, Vermont, (or Bermington, according to Father. Morice.) By heredity he was pure Scots, from Culbochie. There has been a suggestion in some biographical notes that one of his parents was related to one of the more influential Scottish… Read More

 By Dorthea CalverleyA.N. McLeod had constructed a walled fort with four bastions at Dunvegan in the winter of 1805-06 after a false start on the other side of the river. At least forty-five men were employed there as well as officers and hunters. It was a hive of industry. Eleven canoes were made that winter… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley  Peter Pond gave the first jolt to the Bay Company’s owners in England. They had been getting dividends of 7 to 10% on their money, an excellent return for that time. For a few years they could blame declining profits and poor business on wars or shipwrecks but in the end they… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley One of the most colorful of the Peace River Country’s early fur traders was painted very black indeed in the secret “Character Book” kept by another fiery fur trade character, Governor George Simpson of the HBCo. Samuel Black was his name and if it had not been for Simpson’s company, the name might… Read More

 By Dorthea Calverley  George Simpson became governor of the amalgamated companies when the Hudson Bay Company took over the nearly bankrupt NorthWest Company in 1821. With headquarters at Fort Garry (Winnipeg), he set out to inspect personally all of the routes by which trade was carried on. The famous governor made a brief appearance on… Read More

By Dorthea H. CalverleyHundreds of stories have been written about the lonely trapper tramping his line to bring in the pelts on which the fur trade flourished. But what of the lonely fur-trader in the posts or forts? An exile from his homeland in most cases, he also had problems. The Hudson’s Bay or Northwest… Read More

 By Dorthea Calverley  By 1864 there were growing demands that western lands be opened up for settlement. In 1869 this became possible when The Hudson’s Bay Company sold its land rights to the newly formed Confederation of Canada. Until that time the Hudson’s Bay had a nearly complete monopoly to trade in Western Canada. The… Read More

By Dorthea Calverley (1973)Between the autumn of 1865 and the spring of 1868 there lived in our country one of a family of distinguished Canadian pathfinders of the west — Henry John Moberly. His name is perpetuated on our own Moberly Lake and Moberly River. He was born in Penetanguishene, Ontario on August 2, 1835,… Read More

By Dorthea CalverleyThe eastern half of the Peace had its own renowned free trader who successfully challenged the Hudson’s Bay Company. When he died in 1952, Sheridan Lawrence of Fort Vermilion, and later of Peace River Town, was known continent-wide and abroad as “The Emperor of the Peace”. It was in 1886 that as a… Read More

 By Dorthea Calverley [1973]One of the last Company-employed traders to make a name for himself in local our history was Frank Beatton. Canadian history had its Red River Rebellion in Manitoba and its Riel Rebellion in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The year 1912 might have recorded the Peace War if Beatton had not been here. Beatton… Read More