Archibald McDonald was one of the most important fur traders in the region west of the Rockies. He is particularly remembered as a factor at Forts Langley, Kamloops, and Colville, and as one of the traders who enabled the Hudson's Bay Company to gain control of the vast region west of the Rockies.

A pioneer cartographer, he also prepared the first censuses of Kamloops and Fort Langley. In this informative and entertaining collection of letters, his life as a factor, family man, amateur naturalist, and close observer of everything going on around him provides an invaluable glimpse of...