The Lifeline of the Oregon Country: The Fraser-Columbia Brigade System, 1811–47 by James R. Gibson (review)

humanities 417 James R. Gibson. The Lifeline of the Oregon Country: The Fraser-Columbia Brigade System, 1811B47 University of British Columbia Press. xii. 292. $75.00, $24.95 James R. Gibson is perhaps Canada's pre-eminent geographer/historian on the subject of the western fur trade. In his latest book he focuses on the vital transportation link between the east and west established between the Fraser and Columbia rivers in British Columbia. Gibson states the story is about `the locales, routes, stopovers, brigaders, carriers, loads, problems, changes' of this transportation system in British Columbia; but the story is more than just the brigade system. It is a microcosm of the fur trade. Gibson's penchant for `data' is at the core of this new work. He utilizes a chronological and spatial technique, an approach that works well. The opening three chapters form the introduction and set the stage for the descriptive detail to follow. Gibson then takes the reader through fourteen chapters along the brigade route from Fort St James to Fort Alexandria, Alexandria to Okanagan via Kamloops, and Okanagan to Walla Walla (Fort Nez Perces) and to the Pacific, followed by the return journey. Within each chapter the `data' of various annual brigades creates a picture of each leg of the journey, what Gibson calls `an empirical, even documentary treatment.' He is quick to say his monograph is not a theoretical work along the line of Innis B though, with minimal effort by Gibson, it could have filled that bill as well. The book is attractively laid out, with appropriate quotations heading each chapter. The printing is excellent, especially the cover of John Innes's painting, which alone gives a visual image to the brigades. Illustrations could have lifted the book's otherwise dry appearance. There is relief in five clear maps of the brigade route, which, although not to the same scale, span the geography from New Caledonia to the Columbia River mouth. (A locator map would have helped the reader comprehend the whole route.) Unfortunately, the maps compound misinformation made in the text (or vice versa). The most egregious error is shown on map 2; specifically, the route shown used after 1841 B it went from Horse Lake (not Bridge Lake) southeast to Kamloops Lake (not along Deadman River), then to Kamloops. One of the pitfalls of armchair (or archival) research is ignoring the data that only intimate knowledge of the ground can provide. However, for such a detailed and rich study, the errors and limitations of the work are perhaps forgivable. In most monographs of this nature, defining the limits of the subject is challenging and sometimes difficult. Here, Gibson has focused on the Fraser-Columbia connection, deliberately ignoring the entire system with its myriad trails from the outlying posts to Fort St James. Gibson mentions the Athabaska communication but does not acknowledge its very vital role 418 letters in canada 1999 in carrying mail and men (recruits) into the Columbia Department, a route used until the late 1840s B it was in effect another brigade route. Gibson's narrow focus can be forgiven but could have been clarified more in the introduction. The conclusion deals with the issues of cost and changes in the fur trade that saw its demise. The cut-off date for the research, at the time of the Oregon Treaty in 1846, is significant, though the brigade system continued for a dozen more years via a trail across the Cascades to the lower Fraser, the outlet earlier envisaged by Governor George Simpson. Two appendices, William Connolly's journal of a brigade trip in 1826 and Peter Warren Dease's account of a journey in 1831, provide the fodder for much of Gibson's analysis. The notes are prodigious and a measure of the extensive research, especially of Hudson's Bay Archives records, that has gone into this work. Indeed, this is the strength of Gibson's style and method B the use of primary sources to recreate the past in a narrative fashion. Although the reliance on quotations is sometimes laborious, it is sound and readable research. This publication is an invaluable source of information on the Columbian `communication,' as...