Fur Trade Letters of Willie Traill 18641893

I take great care of your letters...so they will be ready some day to be made use of...to make a volume of them or portion of them-for what you now write of those unknown regions cannot but prove valuable information in the future-so I regard your letters as Historical documents of no little value in the time to come and in my own eyes very precious for the loving heart that dictates them...-Catharine Parr Traill to her son Willie Traill, April 1890William Edward Traill, better known as Willie, was the son of Catharine Par Traill, The Backwoods of Canada (1836), and nephew of Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush (1852), and he too was a natural writer.Traill left Upper Canada to join the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become the Canadian West. For some thirty years, he worked his way up from clerk to Chief Trader. He also met and married Harriet McKay and together they had twelve children.His letters home between 1864 and 1893 convey a rich and detailed portrait of domestic life in the service of the fur trade of the Northwest. At turns gritty, then deeply touching, the Willie Traill letters are a fascinating and unguarded portrait of the joys and heartbreaking challenges of raising a family in the fur trade.This collection of letters is unique and to my knowledge there is nothing like it in print. It represents a new, interesting and very valuable window on fur trade domesticity and family life.-Gerhard EnsI salute Doug Munro for his effort and vision in bringing forward the life, times, and observations of Willie Traill, HBC man to the core and, at heart, his mother's good and loyal son.-Michael Peterman, from the ForewordK. Douglas Munro is the great-grandson of Willie Traill. He was encouraged by Pat McCloy, the discoverer of these letters and fellow Traill descendent, to publish this collection. He lives in Victoria, BC with his wife Adele.Traill, William Edward is the author of 'Fur Trade Letters of Willie Traill 18641893 ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780888644602 and ISBN 0888644604.