Canada's western wilderness was the scene of fur trader John Tod's extraordinary life. Born in a Scottish village in 1794, Tod spent 40 adventurous years working for the Hudson's Bay Company and in his later years, served on the first Legislative Council of the fledgling colony of Vancouver Island. Posted all over the Company's vast territory - York Factory, McLeod Lake, Fort Alexandria, Island Lake, Fort Kamloops - he spent most of his years in New Caledonia. A spirited and prickly man he was a free thinker, impatient with authority and distrustful of many of his superiors. He was also a lifelong and loyal friend to many of his fur-trade colleagues, especially John Work, the Ermatinger brothers and James Murray Yale. Tod saw astonishing changes in the west, from the bitter warfare between the Hudson's Bay Company and the Nor'Westers, to settlement by pioneers and the conventions of the polite colonial society. Few lives have spanned such contrasts. This definitive biography presents the picture of the unusual man in an exciting era.

The Hudson's Bay Company was one of the great merchant companies. Granted sole trading rights to a huge part of what is now Canada, they were coerced in the mid-nineteenth century to set up a colonial administration on Vancouver Island to protect British interests at a time of growing expansionism from America to the south and possible threats from a Russian Alaska to the north. 'Company, Crown and Colony' tells the story of the challenges they faced. Drawing on rich archival resources the author provides a detailed account of this turbulent period, revealing the difficulties faced by a leading merchant company as they sought to resolve their conflicting interests of commerce and settlement in a complex situation, and providing fresh and lively insights into the emergence of a region of North America that is today one of the principal commercial centres of Canada.

In the tradition of Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World comes a narrative that charts the remarkable—yet often overlooked or misidentified—Scottish contribution to Arctic exploration The search for the Northwest Passage is filled with stories of tragedy, adventure, courage, and endurance. It was one of the great maritime challenges of the era. It was not until the 1850’s that the first one-way partial transit of the passage was made. Previous attempts had all failed, and some, like the ill-fated attempted by Sir John Franklin in 1845 ended in tragedy with the loss of the entire expedition, which was comprised of two ships and 129 men. Northern Lights reveals Scotland’s previously unsung role in the remarkable history of Arctic exploration. There was the intrepid John Ross, an eccentric hell-raiser from Stranraer and a veteran of three Arctic expeditions; his nephew, James Clark Ross, the most experienced explorer of his generation and discoverer of the Magnetic North Pole; Dr. John Richardson of Dumfries, who became an accidental cannibal and deliberate executionaer of a murderer as well as an engaging natural historian; and Orcadian John Rae, the man who first discovered evidence of Sir John Franklin and his crew’s demise. Northern Lights also pays tribute and reveals other overlooked stories in this fascinating era of history: the Scotch Irish, the whalers, and especially the Inuit, whose unparalleled knowledge of the Arctic environment was often indispensible. For anyone fascinated by Scottish history or hungry for tales of Arctic adventure, Northern Lights is a vivid new addition to the rich tradition of polar narratives.