Pierre de la verendrye biography of rory
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1. In , a leading official of the North West Company was able to write correctly that the fur trade was British America's most important commerce. This is in contrast to the United States where the fur trade was of much less importance in relation to other industries. "Some konto of the trade carried on by the North West Company", photostat, 23 pages, or , Public Archives, Ottawa. Much of this account is believed to have been written by William McGillivray, who hereafter will be identified as the author. This account has been published in Authur G. Doughty, Report of the Public Archives for the Year (Ottawa, ), pp. See also Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada, an Introduction to Canadian Economic History (Toronto, U. of Toronto Press, ) p.
2. Europeans believed that the Pacific Ocean lay not very far beyond the Great Lakes. This misconception was the driving force behind much of the early utforskning. Even after the breadth of North America was recog
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Chapter 2: Fur Trade and Rendezvous
Chapter 2: Fur Trade and the Rendezvous System
The brief year period of the fur trade rendezvous in Wyoming illustrates enduring truths in the economic development of the state. While none of the events occurred in the 20th century, striking parallels can be drawn from the fur trade which help explain the evolution of later industries in Wyoming, including agriculture and cattle, tourism and the mineral industry. The product was natural resource-based, the market for the product was virtually non-existent within the state, and it was subject to wild fluctuations in prices depending on international trends.
It must be emphasized that none of these characteristics are unique to Wyoming. Similar conditions apply to any colonial economy. Nonetheless, what makes studying the fur trade period useful is that, to a great extent, Wyoming remains colonial. Even two decades into the new millennium, primary products come from natural resource
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The early s brought two events that would have a profound effect on the history of Grand Portage.
In and , one of the worst epidemics in North American history swept across the western half of the continent. It was smallpox. The horror of it was still fresh for traders who wrote years after: it "spread its destructive and desolating power, as the fire consumes the dry grass of the field. The fatal infection spread around with a baneful rapidity which no flight could escape. . . . it destroyed . . . whole families and tribes." [1]
The disease seems to have started on the Missouri River and spread north and west till it decimated the population as far as Athabasca. The casualty rate was higher than the Black Death in Europe&#;most estimates said two-thirds of the population died. Whole villages stood deserted. Hungry dogs mauled the corpses, for no one was left to bury them. One fur trader who went west that year first learned of the tragedy when he met a few survivor