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Biography & Autobiography Adventurers & Explorers

Emperor Of The North

Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson's Bay Company

by (author) James Raffan

Publisher
HarperCollins Canada
Initial publish date
Aug 2010
Category
Adventurers & Explorers
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781443401395
    Publish Date
    Aug 2010
    List Price
    $11.99
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780002007832
    Publish Date
    Oct 2007
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780006394877
    Publish Date
    Oct 2008
    List Price
    $22.99

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Description

The adventure-filled story of the legendary Hudson’s Bay Company is inextricably linked to the formation of a Canadian nation stretching from sea to sea to sea. In an absorbing and lively new book on The Bay, James Raffan explores the forces that moulded a man, a company and a country.

The histories of Sir George Simpson and the HBC in the golden years of the 19th century are in many ways one history, for Simpson’s professional acumen and personal ambitions propelled a failing business to a position of great wealth and political power. At its height, the HBC trading territory covered an astonishing one-twelfth of the world’s surface. Raffan captures the many contradictions of the larger-than-life man at its centre: a brilliant manager who kept an iron grip on his fur forts from east to west, ensuring British power across the land; a pompous dandy who was most at home in a voyageur-paddled canoe; a man ashamed of his illegitimate birth but who went on to sire 13 children with eight different women, only one of whom was his wife; a master businessman who laid the foundations for the single greatest business enterprise of its day. Emperor of the North is the vibrant tale of a man who shaped much more than a fur-trading company—he launched an empire of ideas that led to the creation of a country. Meticulously researched, highly readable and wonderfully illuminated by maps and archival photographs, Emperor of the North is a delight for history buffs, armchair adventurers and biography fans alike.

About the author

James Raffan is a prolific writer, speaker, and geographer, and the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Circling The Midnight SunEmperor Of The NorthBark, Skin And Cedar; and Fire In The Bones. He has written for a variety of media outlets, including National GeographicCanadian GeographicUp HereExplore and The Globe and Mail, and produced radio and television documentaries for CBC Radio and the Discovery Channel. His work has taken him all over the world. He is an international fellow of the Explorers Club, a past chair of the Arctic Institute of North America, and a fellow and past governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, service for which he was awarded many medals, including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. From 2010 to 2013, he traveled through the Arctic Circle, spending time in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, as he researched and wrote on culture and climate change in the North. He lives in Seeley’s Bay, Ontario. Visit him at JamesRaffan.ca or follow him on Twitter @raffjam.

James Raffan's profile page

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