Introduction

In Pursuit of Adventure: The Fur Trade in Canada and the North West Company provides access to the full text of thirty-eight manuscripts collectively known as the Masson Papers. The Masson Papers comprise letters, diaries, travel narratives, and other textual documents relating to the North West Company and the colonial-era fur trade more generally. The papers represent a settler perspective of North American places and peoples.

Although the Masson Papers have appeared in print, first in 1889 and in subsequent editions, they appear here for the first time in a searchable, full-text database. As is explained in the introduction to the Manuscripts, the transcription team has painstakingly produced what is in effect a new critical edition of the Masson Papers. Additionally, the site includes a chronology, glossary, and a bibliography of other resources relating to the fur trade.

This site was built upon two kinds of partnerships. The first was with our partners, including the McCord Museum of Canadian History and the Stewart Museum. The second was financial. Without the support of the Canadian Millennium Partnership Program, the Hudson's Bay History Foundation and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec's Fonds de l'autoroute de l'information (FAI), this site would not be online today.