Hudson’s Bay Company employee George Simpson McTavish Jr., the son of a Scottish fur trader, brought back a pair of moccasins from Fort Churchill around 1887.
Carrioles allowed trappers to transport supplies and furs throughout the winter. Pulled by dogs, they were sometimes used to transport high-profile people.
John Bockstoce’s White Fox and Icy Seas in the Western Arctic explores a period from the turn of the last century to the early 1930s, during which a flourishing trade in white fox furs led to economic boom times for trappers and traders in much of the Arctic.
Often called a buffalo knife or chief’s knife, this artifact was described as “extremely heavy… a sort of butcher’s cleaver with a point instead of squared-off end.”
From the Archives: The September 1935 issue of The Beaver gave readers a tour of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-grading and cold-storage operations in London, England.