In Voices from Hudson Bay Cree elders recall the daily lives and experiences of the men and women who lived and worked at the Hudson's Bay Company post at York Factory in Manitoba. Their stories, their memories of family, community, and daily life, define their past and provide insights into a way of life that has largely disappeared in northern Canada.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Inuit and Cree in the Hudson Bay Bioregion.

Between 1959 and 1966, the late CBC Radio journalist Imbert Orchard travelled across British Columbia with recording engineer Ian Stephen interviewing nearly a thousand of the province’s pioneers. The resulting collection — 2,700 hours of audiotapes describing both extraordinary events and everyday experiences — is considered by historians to be one of the best sources of primary information about the province. To the general public, however, the tales in these tapes remain virtually unknown. Combining text, archival photographs and the original sound recordings from the CBC Archives onto three CDs, Voices of British Columbia draws 24 stories from this collection to immerse us in daily life in the early 20th century. You’ll meet Sarah Glassey, a spirited homesteader who carried a rifle and bagged more birds than any man in the Kispiox Valley. You’ll hear Bill LaChance, the sole survivor of the 1910 Glacier Snowslide, describe that tragic avalanche. And you’ll discover how Great Chief Kwah of Fort St. James spared the life of James Douglas, future governor of British Columbia. By turns sad, contemplative, insightful and funny, these stories reveal as much about the spirit and resilience of people as they do about the history of the province.

In Voices from Hudson Bay Cree elders recall the daily lives and experiences of the men and women who lived and worked at the Hudson's Bay Company post at York Factory in Manitoba. Their stories, their memories of family, community, and daily life, define their past and provide insights into a way of life that has largely disappeared in northern Canada.

On April 23, 1990, after a five-week journey from Hudson Bay to the Hudson River, the Odeyak landed at the Battery for Earth Day. Half-Cree, half-Inuit, the 24-foot freighter canoe, plowing across the Manhattan seascape, was a strange small vessel build in the dark Arctic winter to carry a message from two First Nations of the northern wilderness to a reclaiming of Times Square for Mother Earth. Along with the Crees' and the Inuit's hopes and fears for their children and for the future of their river, the Odeyak carried a simple request. The Great Whale Hydroelectric Project, the first part of James Bay II, will destroy the natural economy of the Great Whale region, killing the way of life the Crees and the Inuit have followed since time immemorial. It came to ask the people of New England and New York not to buy the power.

The original people of the Hudson Bay lowlands, often known as the Lowland Cree and known to themselves as Muskekowuck Athinuwick, were among the first Aboriginal peoples in northwestern North America to come into contact with Europeans. This book challenges long-held misconceptions about the Lowland Cree, and illustrates how historians have often misunderstood the role and resourcefulness of Aboriginal peoples during the fur-trade era. Although their own oral histories tell that the Lowland Cree have lived in the region for thousands of years, many historians have portrayed the Lowland Cree as relative newcomers who were dependent on the Hudson's Bay Company fur-traders by the 1700s. Historical geographer Victor Lytwyn shows instead that the Lowland Cree had a well-established traditional society that, far from being dependent on Europeans, was instrumental in the survival of traders throughout the network of HBC forts during the 18th and 19th centuries.