In 1841, aged just sixteen, the intrepid young Scotsman Robert M. Ballantyne (1825 94) joined the Hudson's Bay Company. Posted immediately to North-Eastern Canada, he spent five years traversing the region's inhospitable terrain by sleigh and canoe. His journal and letters home were so evocative that, upon his return, he was persuaded to publish an account of his experiences. Combining anthropological observations with descriptions of landscapes, plants, and animals, the account was applauded by the Dundee Courier for 'opening up a mine of information to the curious' and 'describing the...