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 his 1855 map shows Canada at the height of the fur trade. Confederation had not occurred; the Hudson's Bay Company administered most of the western interior; Russia held Alaska. By this date the great canoes were still in service, but large boats had replaced them on the main water routes.
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J. H. Colton & Co.
Northern America, 1855
National Archives of Canada (NMC 7037)
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Sir George Simpson (1786-1860)
Hudson's Bay Company Archives (Photograph Collection 1987/363-S -25/5 [N1987/335/A2])
Provincial Archives of Manitoba
 impson, the Hudson's Bay Company Governor-in-Chief from 1821 to 1860, had his own narrow beam, eight-metre "Express Canoe" that carried him across Canada many times. With flag flying, an elite crew of Iroquois voyageurs, and a personal Scottish piper, Simpson's arrival at any outpost was a very special event.
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Lady Frances Simpson (1812-1853)
Hudson's Bay Company Archives (Photograph Collection Album 10/82 [N6459])
Provincial Archives of Manitoba
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 nly nineteen and newly married to the Hudson's Bay Governor Sir George Simpson in 1830, Frances Simpson and a companion, Catherine Turner, were the first British women ever to travel by canoe from Lachine (Quebec) to York Factory (Manitoba) on Hudson's Bay.
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The Journeys of Sir George Simpson, 1820-60
Hudson's Bay Company Archives, The Beaver, June 1936, p. 33 (N13713)
Provincial Archives of Manitoba (and The Beaver, Canada's National History Society)
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 lmost all of the travels depicted here were made in birchbark canoes. As Simpson once wrote, "It is strange that all my ailments vanish as soon as I seat myself in a canoe."* Nicknamed the "Little Emperor," he was renowned for his energy, determination, toughness, and business ability.
* Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 8, p. 817.
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