Sir Alexander Mackenzie is known to schoolchildren as a great Canadian explorer who gave his name to the country’s longest river, but hardly anyone could name the man who mentored Mackenzie and mapped much of northwestern Canada before him. Soldier, fur trader and explorer Peter Pond, the subject of this long overdue book, is a man whose legend has been forgotten in favor of those who came after him. Much of Pond’s life is shadowed in mystery. Historian Barry Gough uses Pond’s surviving memoirs, explorers’ journals, letters written by acquaintances of Pond, publications in London magazines and many other sources to track and reconstruct the life of one of the last of the tough, old-style explorers who ventured into the wilderness with little more than a strong instinct for survival and helped shape the modern world.

Authors, Canadian (English) 20th century, Biographies, Biography, Canada Canadian Northwest, Compagnie du Nord-Ouest Histoire, Connecticut, Coureurs de bois Nord-Ouest canadien Biographies, Discoveries in geography American, Explorateurs Nord-Ouest canadien Biographies, Explorers, Explorers Northwest, Canadian Biography, Fourrures Commerce Nord-Oue

Peter Pond and the riddles of history Crucible of war Wilderness tangles : Robert Rogers, Jonathan Carver, and the Northwest Passage Trader and emissary to the Sioux Among the Canadians on the Saskatchewan and the rivals from Hudson Bay Athabasca odyssey Maps, dreams, and empire The outlier returns