In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Fur Trade Social History and the Public Historian: Some Other Recent Trends Michael Payne It is now over fifteen years since the Third North American Fur Trade Conference was held in Winnipeg. The papers presented at that conference had a profound impact on fur trade historiography in their own right, but they also reflected equally significant changes in scholarly research on fur trade subjects which had been taking form over the previous decade. One paper in particular, Sylvia Van Kirk's "Fur Trade Social History: Some Recent Trends," specifically set out to review four relatively recent and very influential doctoral dissertations which together promised to establish what was essentially a new field of fur trade studies: fur trade social history. 1 Sylvia Van Kirk's paper, however, did more than simply posit the existence of a new school of fur trade studies. In addition to summarizing the main "findings arising from these new works," she went on to suggest a series of topics and questions which these dissertations seemed to suggest would warrant further investigation.2 The purpose of this paper is not to offer a tedious and second hand precis of the doctoral dissertations of John Foster, Frits Pannekoek, Jennifer Brown, and Sylvia Van Kirk. All are well-known to anyone working in fur trade research, and in varying degrees each has become more or less canonical . Certainly few scholars would have the temerity to ignore completely women or Native groups any more, and the belief that the fur trade needs to be understood as a social as well as a commercial system is now axiomatic. What is less clear, however, is how prophetic Sylvia Van Kirk's article was when it came to outlining where fur trade social history might go over the next decade based upon the issues raised in these dissertations. In academic circles in Canada, the cynical response might be that fur trade social history has never really gone anYWhere, despite the high hopes raised in Winnipeg. Although by no means a perfect reflection of academic interest or activity, a survey of the Canadian Historical Review's regular bibliography of "Recent Publications Relating to Canada" makes it clear that the overwhelming majority of these publications concern post-Confederation topics, and very few address the fur trade in any period. Similarly, the Canadian Historical Association's Register of Dissertations between 1980 and 1990 contains no more 481 MICHAEL PAYNE than a handful of doctoral or master's level theses either completed or in progress-let alone abandoned-in the area of fur trade studies.3 Instead most ongoing scholarly interest in the fur trade has concentrated on relations between Aboriginal peoples and Euro-Canadians as well as on the fur trade as a factor in cultural change and adaptation among native groups. While fur trade social history shares an interest in these matters, they are not its primary focus. According to Van Kirk's analysis-given that the fur trade was a "socio-cultural complex" of some sort-fur trade social history would elaborate the norms and values of that society along with "the differing organizational and personnel structures [of fur trade companies]; the nature of Hudson's Bay and North West Company interaction with the Indians, particularly intermarriage between traders and Indian women; and the different experience of the mixed-blood children of the Hudson's Bay Company tradition and those of the North-West Company tradition.,,4 Thus, although the main protagonists in the definition of fur trade social history have remained active and productive, very few new voices have been raised within the university community.5 It is perhaps for this reason that at a recent symposium on the future direction of research in fur trade and Native history Arthur Ray commented that, while the writing of the social history of the fur trade is still much discussed, it is less frequently attempted.6 Unlike the university community, however, federal and provincial heritage agencies in Canada have taken to fur trade social history like the proverbial ducks to water. For a variety of reasons social history meshed neatly with perceived site development and interpretation needs at fur trade historic sites. As a result, the bulk of new research on fur trade history, and especially fur trade social history, being done in Canada is the product of historians working either directly or on contract for organizations like the Canadian Parks Service or its provincial counterparts.7 As C.J. Taylor has noted, many of...

Share