William W. Warren's History of the Ojibway People has long been recognized as a classic source on Ojibwe history and culture. Warren, the son of an Ojibwe woman, wrote his history in the hope of saving traditional stories for posterity even as he presented to the American public a sympathetic view of a people he believed were fast disappearing under the onslaught of a corrupt frontier population. He collected firsthand descriptions and stories from relatives, tribal leaders, and acquaintances and transcribed this oral history in terms that nineteenth-century whites could understand, focusing...

Captivated by the tales of adventure in the wild northwest told by the voyageurs, fifteen-year-old George Nelson left his family in southern Canada in 1802 and headed out to the Northwest Territory to begin a five-year contract working for Sir Alexander Mackenzie's XY Company, one of the major fur trade companies of the time. His growth from homesick lad to experienced fur trader over the next two years forms the heart of this unique and fascinating journal.

Nelson had been hired as a clerk but, because of the shortage of literate and experienced men, within a year he was promoted...