Emperor of the North

by James Raffan

Book Overview

The adventure-filled story of the legendary Hudson s Bay Company is inextricably linked to the formation of a Canadian nation stretching from sea to sea to sea. In an absorbing and lively new book on The Bay, James Raffan explores the forces that moulded a man, a company and a country. The histories of Sir George Simpson and the HBC in the golden years of the 19th century are in many ways one history, for Simpson s professional acumen and personal...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0002007835
• ISBN13: 9780002007832
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Phyllis Bruce Books
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

James Raffin's Emperor of the North

Without Sir George Simpson, for better or for worse, Western Canada would not exist. A fiesty little illegitimate Scot, aged 28, who the Governors of the Hudson's Bay Company plucked, from outside the fur trade and the company, from a London counting house and sent to take over the company's operations, sight unseen. For 40 years, mainly by commanding brigades of 36 foot canoes d'maitre with manic intensity, he expanded (onto the Pacific Coast) and preserved the company, circumnavigated the globe through Russia, sired a score of children throughout his domain and behaved as most great men, given great power, behave. Raffan tells a story impossible to put down, loves the north and loves the canoe.