Customer Reviews

Winner Take All: The Trans-Canada Canoe Trail (American Trails Series)

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Fishing discovered the Canadian wilderness but trapping gave it life. The primary employer for the initial inhabitants of North America, the fur trade was the foremost economic force of its time. As such, it was the key economic driver for the continuing westward exploration and development of the North American continent.

Starting with Jacques Cartier's explorations that opened Canada for France in 1534, this book traces the development of the French fur trade through the French and Indian War when France ceded Canada to Britain in 1763. Continuing on after the Revolutionary War, American Tories, who migrate to Montreal and found the Nor'west Company, would ultimately assume French fur operations. Under their direction, a 4,000 mile, trans Canadian, east - west water route across the northern half of the North American continent, from Montreal to Astoria, Oregon, would be developed. Amazingly, over 95% of this route was traveled by canoe.

Winner Take All is the story of the epic struggle of the Native people, the Jesuits, the French voyagers, the English and the Scots, all of which succeeded each other over time in developing and settling Canada as we know it today. From Samuel de Champlain's founding of Quebec and Montreal and discovery of Hudson's Bay in the early 1600s to Samuel Hearne's discovery of the Arctic Ocean in the late 1700s and Alexander Mackenzie's discovery of the Pacific Ocean in 1793, David Lavender pens a most remarkable history which is liberally sprinkled with other great names of North American exploration and commerce to include Radisson, Fraser, Simpson, Thompson and Astor.

Canada's fur business lasted almost 300 years, from 1550 until 1835, and David Lavender does an excellent job in peeling back the complex layers of this onion. There was no other trail like the trans Canadian fur trail in North America, maybe in the world. Unlike other trails it was primarily a commercial thoroughfare, almost never used for emigration. This is the story of the mercantile enterprise that settled Canada via a wilderness route that even today remains totally uninhabited. It is the story of a hard, bitterly contested highway that made the fur trade possible and in the process became an essential part of Canada's proud national heritage.

This is an exciting, well crafted read that pleases from the get-go. You will not be disappointed. It is author David Lavender at his finest.

Fantastic history of the opening of North America by canoe. Fascinating history of exploration west from Montreal and Quebec to the Pacific. Role of the traders and trappers in opening western Canada and present day northwestern US. Hardships. Customs. A real who's who from 16th to 19th century. Well researched. A long, slow read, but well worth it.