Biggar, H.P., The Early Trading Companies of New France, New York, Argonaut Press, 1965.
Bishop, C.A., The Northern Ojibwa and the Fur Trade: An Historical and Ecological Study, Toronto, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.
Brown, J., Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1980.
Brunet, M., French Canada and the Early Decades of British Rule, 1760-1791, Ottawa, Canadian Historical Association Booklet, 1966.
Carlos, A.M. and E. Hoffman, "The North American Fur Trade: Bargaining to a Joint Maximum under Incomplete Information, 1804-1821," Journal of Economic History, 46, December 1986, 967-86. Uses modern models of bargaining under conditions of imperfect competition and correspondence between the HBC and its London Committee to analyze the efficiency aspects of the business. Finds that much of the potential gain from the merger was lost due to the depletion of animal stocks.
Carlos, A.M. and F.D. Lewis, "Indians, the Beaver, and the Bay: The Economics of Depletion in the Lands of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1700-1763, Journal of Economic History, 53, 3, September 1993. Reprinted in D. McCalla and M. Huberman, eds., Perspectives on Canadian Economic History, 2nd. edition, Copp Clark Longman, Toronto, 1994, pp. 10-37. The evidence presented suggests that as long as the Hudson’s Bay Company could control access to the resource, harvesting was kept within acceptable limits. But once competition developed the Bay was forced to raise the prices it paid for fur and the Indians responded by over-harvesting and depleting the resource. Contains a brief history of the fur trade.
Carlos, A.M., "The Birth and Death of Predatory Competition in the North American Fur Trade," Explorations in Economic History, 19, April 1982, 156-83. A modern study which argues that predatory competition in the trade was neither necessary nor inevitable before 1821. When it did develop it was as a result of several factors which had combined by 1816: the HBC financial crisis of 1809, declining animal stocks, and the perceptions by the NWC of HBC actions.
Carlos, A.M., "The Causes and Origins of the Canadian Fur Trade Rivalry," Journal of Economic History, 41, December 1981, 777-94. Prior to 1804 the relationship in the duopoly was passive and only after the financial crisis of 1809-10 was the HBC shocked out of complacency into aggressive competition -- which it initiated.
Crean, J.F., "Hats and the Fur Trade," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 28, August 1962, 373-86. A remarkable student essay setting out the technical and other changes in the European hat industry which underlay the demand for North American beaver fur in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Dickason, O.P., The Myth of the Savage and the Beginnings of French Colonialism in the Americas, Edmonton, University of Alberta Press, 1983.
Easterbrook, W.T. and H.G.J. Aitken, Canadian Economic History, Toronto, Macmillan, 1956. Chapters 6, 8, and 15. A classic and still essential survey of the historic fur trade.
Eccles, W.J., " A Belated Review of Harold Adam Innis’, The Fur Trade in Canada," Canadian Historical Review, 60, December 1979, 419-41. A critical retrospective review of the classic charging Innis with economic determinism, and with exaggerating the importance of the fur trade in New France and in North America. See H.M. Grant's reply.
Eccles, W.J., "New France and the Western Frontier," Alberta Historical Review, 17, 1969, 23-31. A sympathetic study of the life of the voyageurs and their role in the opening of western Canada. Comments on the relationship between the French and the native Indians and contrasts this with the American experience.
Eccles, W.J., Canada under Louis XIV, 1663-1701, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1964.
Eccles, W.J., The Canadian Frontier 1534-1760, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966. (Revised edition, 1983.)
Francis, D. and T. Morantz, Partners in Furs: A History of the Fur Trade in Eastern James Bay 1600-1870, Kingston and Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983.
Galbraith, J.S., The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor, 1821-1869, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1957.
Gilman, C., Where Two Worlds Meet: the Great Lakes Fur Trade, St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota Historical Society, 1982.
Gluek, A.C., Jr., "Industrial Experiments in the Wilderness: A Sidelight in the Business History of the Hudson's Bay Company," Business History Review, 32, 1958, 423-33. Discusses the attempts made by the HBC to establish industrial activities at the Red River Settlement. The failure of these attempts proved once again that "...industry cannot flourish in the wilderness." p.423.
Grant, H.M., "One Step Forward Two Steps Back: Innis, Eccles and the Canadian Fur Trade," Canadian Historical Review, 62, September 1981, 304-22. A reply to Eccles (1979) defending Innis against the charge of "extreme determinism" and claiming Eccles failed to grasp the general framework of Innis' analysis. See Eccles' reply in the same issue, pp. 323-29.
Greer, A., "Fur Trade Labour and Lower Canadian Agrarian Structures, "Historical Papers 1981, Canadian Historical Association, 197-214. A local case study examining the way the manpower needs of the continental fur trade during the period of the North West Company shaped the social and economic structures of French Canada.
Harris, R.C., The Seigneurial System in Early Canada: A Geographical Study, Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1966.
Igartua, J., "The Merchants of Montreal at the Conquest: Socio-Economic Profile," Histoire sociale/Social History, 8, November 1975, 275-91. There was little wealth in the merchant community as a whole and little upward mobility. This put local businessmen at a disadvantage in competing with British and Americans for control of the fur trade.
Innis, H.A., "Interrelations between the Fur Trade of Canada and the United States," in M.Q. Innis, ed., Essays in Canadian Economic History, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1956, 97-107. A brief survey of the North American fur trade suggesting that studies of the trade in the US, where it was only a transitory industry, supported the Turner thesis with its emphasis on the role of the frontier, but in Canada the trade became a permanent feature of the economy. (The "Turner thesis" refers to the emphasis placed by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner on the effect an open western frontier had on American economic growth in the 19th century. See F.J. Turner, The Frontier in American History, New York, Holt, 1921.)
Innis, H.A., The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1930.
Jaenen, C.J., "The Catholic Clergy and the Fur Trade 1585-1685," Canadian Historical Association Report, 1970, 60-80. Examines the possibility that the clergy were involved in an illicit branch of the fur trade, but concludes that the facts will probably never be known due to the secrecy which surrounded the subject.
Lawson, M.G., Fur: A Study in English Mercantilism, 1700-1755, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1943.
Mackay, D., The Honourable Company: A History of the Hudson's Bay Company, revised edition, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1949.
McManus, J., "An Economic Analysis of Indian Behaviour in the North American Fur Trade," Journal of Economic History, 32, March 1972, 36-53. Why did Indians deplete the beaver resource when they had exclusive rights to hunting territories? Suggests the answer may lie in the existence of a "Good Samaritan" constraint on Indian behaviour. The analysis raises interesting questions about the applicability of conventional economic theory to explaining behaviour in different cultures and circumstances.
Mitchell, E.A., Fort Timiskaming and the Fur Trade, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1977.
Morton, W.L., "The North West Company: Pedlars Extraordinary," in Aspects of the Fur Trade: Selected Papers of the 1965 North American Fur Trade Conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, Minnesota Historical Society, 1967.
Phillips, P.C., The Fur Trade, 2 vols., Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
Pomfret, R., "Staple Theory as an Approach to Canadian and Australian Economic Development," Australian Economic History Review, 21, September 1981, 133-46. Suggests that "useful perspectives on early Canadian and Australian economic development can be gained by analyzing the economic characteristics of their staple exports". Also provides a convenient statement of the approach.
Ray, A.J. and D. Freeman, "Give us Good Measure": An Economic Analysis of Relations between the Indians and the Hudson's Bay Company before 1763, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1978.
Ray, A.J., Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters, and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1974.
Ray, A.J., The Canadian Fur Trade in the Industrial Age, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1990. This volume chronicles the decline of the trade in the period 1870 to 1945.
Read, A.G., "General Trade between Quebec and France during the French Régime," Canadian Historical Association Report, 1953.
Rich, E.E., "Trade Habits and Motivation among the Indians of North America," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 26, February 1960, 35-53. Argues that monopoly in the trade was necessitated by the Indians' lack of a sense of property which made it impossible to use the normal European system of incentives and control.
Rich, E.E., The Hudson's Bay Company, 2 vols., London, Hudson's Bay Society, 1958.
Rich, E.E., The Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1870, Toronto, McClelland and Stewart, 1960.
Rotstein, A., "Innis: The Alchemy of Fur and Wheat," Journal of Canadian Studies, 12, Winter 1977, 6-31. An essay interpreting the fur trade and wheat staple in the context of Polanyi's ideas about non-market trade and institutions rather than the orthodox market analysis. Rotstein, like his mentor, rejects the orthodox economist's belief in the omnipresence of the market. (Karl Polanyi, who died in 1964, wrote three major books: The Great Transformation, published in 1944, examined the nature and social consequences of 19th century capitalism; Trade and Market in the Early Empires, 1957, established a theoretical model for studying non-market based economies; Dahomey and the Slave Trade, 1966, was a study of 18th century Dahomey, in West Africa, and in particular its involvement in the slave trade. The latter was published after Polayni’s death in 1964. Polanyi spent his later years in Canada and his influence in this country owes much to the work of his daughter, Kari Levitt of McGill University, and Abraham Rotstein of Toronto.)
Spry, I.M., "Innis, the Fur Trade and Modern Economic Problems," in C.M. Judd and A.J. Ray, eds., Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third Fur Trade Conference, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980, 291-307.
Trigger, B.G., "The French Presence in Huronia: The Structure of Franco - Huron Relations in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century," Canadian Historical Review, 49, June 1968, 107-41. Suggests Jesuits were bent on turning Huronia into an Indian state, not a French colony, and used the fur trade and Quebec government connections for that purpose.
Trigger, B.G., "The Jesuits and the Fur Trade," Ethnohistory, 12, 1965, 30-53. Argues that Jesuits did not try to turn the Hurons into Frenchmen, that they were involved in the fur trade only to further their religious work, and that they were motivated only by belief and concern for welfare of a primitive people.
Trigger, B.G., Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s "Heroic Age" Reconsidered, Kingston and Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1985.
Upton, F.S., Micmacs and Colonists: Indian-White Relations in the Maritimes 1713-1867, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1979.
Van Kirk, S., ‘Many Tender Ties’: Women in Fur-trade Society in Western Canada, 1670-1870, Winnipeg, Watson & Dwyer, 1980.
Williams, G., "Highlights in the History of the First Two Hundred Years of the Hudson's Bay Company," The Beaver, Autumn 1970, 4-64. A concise history of the company. The entire issue of the journal is devoted to the topic and, as usual, is profusely illustrated.
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