The Young Fur Traders (Annotated)

This edition includes the following editor's introduction: Robert Michael Ballantyne, the Scottish master of the adventure genre for young people

Originally published in 1856, "The Young Fur Traders" is one of Scottish author Robert Michael Ballantyne's earliest and most recognized adventure novels. Many of the protagonist's exploits are taken from Ballantyne's own actual experiences during his time with the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.

"The Young Fur Traders" is the story of the hard life of a trapper in Canada in the early 1800s. Charlie Kennedy lives in the Canadian arctic colony known as the Red River Settlement with Indians, Scotsmen, and French-Canadian settlers. His father, an old fur trader, hopes to convince his son to become a clerk by recounting the dangers of the trapper’s life, but the stories only inspire the boy more to explore the vast Canadian wilderness.

Through a variety of circumstances, Charlie finds himself trapping in the vast forests, on a journey with voyageurs down perilous rivers, and surviving all sorts of scrapes and adventures with a new acquaintance, Jacques Caradoc, and an Indian named “Red Feather.”