A lively recounting of the tough men and heroic but overworked packhorses who broke open BC to the big business of the 19th century fur trade. Facing a grueling thousand-mile trail, the brigades of the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) pushed onward over mountains and through ferocious river crossings to reach the isolated fur-trading posts. But it wasn’ t just the landscape the brigades faced, as First Nations people struggled with the desire to resist, or assist, the fur company’ s attempts to build their brigade trails over the Aboriginal trails that led between Indigenous communities, which surrounded the trading posts. Nancy Marguerite Anderson recounts how the devastating Cayuse War of 1847, forced the HBC men over a newly-explored overland trail to Fort Langley. The journey was a disaster-in-waiting. “A fine book with crisp writing nicely balanced between the author’s voice and the journals of the HBC men.”— Tom Hawthorn,  BC BookWorld\ “Anderson’s book reminds readers that the HBC’s business in British Columbia was both in fur and brigade work. The book’s detailed maps will delight readers familiar with current B.C. topographical points and highway systems.”— George Colpitts,  BC Studies “Enlivened by the words of the explorers who established the trails and the brigade leaders who used them, the text is further enhanced by pertinent illustrations and excellent maps.”— Tom Holloway,  Fur Trader Historian “Historically accurate and engaging narratives that connect us all to our diffuse and yet collective past.”— Bruce McIntyre Watson, author of  Lives Lived West of the Divide​ “A sweeping narrative with a compelling description of the routes, trails and roads of the fur trade. My family traveled the HBC brigade trails during the 1820s and 1830s. Anderson’s comprehensive account of my ancestors’ playground pleases me a lot.”— Sam Pambrun, publisher of  The British Columbia Review   A lively recounting of the tough men and heroic but overworked packhorses who broke open B.C. to the big business of the 19th-century fur trade. Nancy Marguerite Anderson is an Indigenous writer descended from three generations of fur traders who worked on the west side of the Rocky Mountains before 1858. Because of her Scottish ancestors’ involvement with the York Factory Express and the HBC Brigades on the Pacific Slopes, she has (to her surprise) become a transportation historian of sorts, writing about the journeys that the Hudson's Bay Company men made both east and west of the Rocky Mountains. nancymargueriteanderson.com ,   ,