Excerpt from The Fur Trade in Northwestern Development As the maritime traders pass off the page of history we admit our indebtedness to them for increased knowledge of our coast geography and for a fleeting glance at the rich possibilities en wrapped in our future, but at the same time we realize that they utterly failed to take advantage of their opportunities or to leave one mark of civilization within our borders. The Astoria venture stands in an unique position. It marks the transition stage. As the scheme was launched it was a com bination of land fur trade and maritime fur trade. The details of its plan are trite. Yet strangely enough so much stress has been laid upon the formation of the central depot at the mouth of the Columbia with auxiliary trading posts on the main stream and branches of that river and the Missouri, and upon the annual ship, which, bringing out the trading goods, should sail to China with the collected furs, that the fact that it included also the prosecution of the maritime trade has been lost to view. Irving, however, tells us that as part of this gigantic, but ill-starred, scheme. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

At the time of its publication in 1930, The Fur Trade in Canada challenged and inspired scholars, historians, and economists. Now, almost seventy years later, Harold Innis's fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian history continues to exert a magnetic influence. Innis has long been regarded as one of Canada's foremost historians, and in The Fur Trade in Canada he presents several histories in one: social history through the clash between colonial and aboriginal cultures; economic history in the development of the West as a result of Eastern colonial and European needs; and transportation history in the case of the displacement of the canoe by the York boat. Political history appears in Innis's examination of the nature of French-British rivalry and the American Revolution; and business history is represented in his detailed account of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies and the industry that played so vital a role in the expansion of Canada. In his introduction to this new edition, Arthur J. Ray argues that The Fur Trade in Canada is the most definitive economic history and geography of the country ever produced. Innis's revolutionary conclusion - that Canada was created because of its geography, not in spite of it - is a captivating idea but also an enigmatic proposition in light of the powerful decentralizing forces that threaten the nation today. Ray presents the history of the book and concludes that "Innis's great book remains essential reading for the study of Canada."