Fur trade, Fur traders' spouses, Women, Canada -- Canadian Northwest, Indigenous women -- Canadian Northwest, Fur traders' spouses -- Canadian Northwest, Women -- Canadian Northwest -- History, Fur trade -- Canadian Northwest -- History, Canadian Northwest -- Social life and customs, Canadian Northwest -- Social conditions, Canadian Northwest -- History, Indigenous women 

"Sexual encounters between Indian women and the fur traders of the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies are generally thought to have been casual and illicit in nature. This illuminating book reveals instead that Indian-white marriages, sanctioned "after the custom of the country", resulted in many warm and enduring family unions. These were profoundly altered by the coming of white women in the 1820s and 1830s.

Among the women are Thanadelthur, the spirited young Chipewyan who led an expedition from York Factory into the Barren Grounds; Isabel Gunn, the Orkney lass who signed on with the Hudson's Bay Company disguised as a boy; Marie Anne Lajimoniere, the first white woman to make a permanent home in the West, and beautiful Sarah Ballenden, the tragic part-Indian wife of Chief Factor John Ballenden.

Professor Van Kirk's sympathetic analysis has been meticulously researched from little-known journals, letters and wills in Canada and Great Britain. The book is generously illustrated with contemporary paintings and photographs which recapture the world of the Western Canada fur trade."--Book jacket. 

Includes bibliographical references and index.