We pack a lot into the pages of every issue of Kayak, but there’s always more great stuff we just can’t fit in. So join Teeka and Beau, our otter mascots, to find out more about the theme of each issue, or just pick up some random bits of Canadian history.

Life in the Wilderness

Some fur trade posts were tiny — just a few men in a roughly made house in the wilderness. Others, such as York Factory, Fort Gibraltar, Lower Fort Garry and Fort William, were home to dozens of Europeans and sometimes their families. Hundreds of Métis and First Nations would come and go, camping outside the post’s walls and trading furs and food they’d hunted for all kinds of tools, weapons and supplies.

There were strict rules about who was in charge at the bigger locations: a chief factor or chief trader, who made all the decisions, including whether or not a servant could get married. There were a few clerks who kept track of the business, men with skills such as blacksmiths, carpenters and interpreters. And of course there were many men who worked at whatever needed to be done.

There was lots of work to go around, but there was also time for sports, board games, reading and even dances in the bigger posts. Houses were simple and not especially clean, except for those of the more senior men in the post, who had more comfortable furniture and sometimes even servants. There was no hospital and rarely a doctor, so diseases and accidents got little treatment.

Images: Courtesy of Fort William Historical Park.