Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson's Bay Company

Alberta History, Spring, 2008

by James Raffan. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 284 pp., illus., hard cover, dust jacket, $34.95.

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This is a monumental study of a monumental man. George Simpson ruled the Northern Department of the HBCo with an iron hand and provided leadership when it was most needed.

The author tells of Simpson's humble beginnings in England, his appointment to the HBCo through family influence, and then through his own business acumen and ability, rising to a position of power. Eventually he was knighted and capped off his career with a two-year voyage around the world.

In places this book reads like a novel and, indeed, the author has no hesitation in drawing upon his imagination when solid facts are hard to come by. But never mind, these descriptive pieces are reasonable conjectures and in no way compete with the truth of the story. They in fact remove the story from the dull and academic to the lively and literary.

His research was exhaustive, his knowledge of the fur trade precise, and the factual accounts even more gripping than his word pictures. It is a book to be read for pleasure and, at the same time, be a source of learning.