The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire by Stephen R. Bown
Copyright : 2020
Pages:486
Book Read This Year: 4th
I learned a lot about The Hudson's Bay Company and the geography of northern North America from this book.
Bown covers from The Hudson's Bay Company's inception in 1670 when French traders Radisson and Groseilliers, rebuffed by their county of nativity went to England to find investors, all the way to the dissolution of the government protections when The Hudson's Bay Company became a regular private business in 1870. Many interesting figures pepper the pages from the native wonder woman Thanadulther, to the visionary Alexander Mackenzie, to the ethically grounded David Thompson, to the overly optimistic Lord Selkirk, to the uniquely cultured Métis people, to the twin giants of the west: John McLoughlin and James Douglas. There are many, many others whom I don't have the time or space to mention in detail.
While I found many parts of this book interesting it was on the whole a history book and very dry and hard to read through. It took me three months to work my way through this history. My mind has been enriched, my curiosity satiated, and my interest piqued.
Things I learned......
My favorite sections of the book were about the early days of the Hudson's Bay Company and getting to learn about the different Indian tribes and how the fur trading industry impacted the local and global economy. I was also fascinated to learn some of the technical aspects of trapping beaver and preparing their pelts in the early days. The most valuable beaver pelts to the Europeans were the pelts that had been worn all winter. The Indians wore them fur side towards the body. After a winter of use the guard hairs had mostly worn off. This made the fur perfectly prepared for the felting process in London. A pelt that was ready to felt was called One Made Beaver and was used as a standard of currency.
I learned that John Astor got his start in fur trading. I had not been aware of that before. I am now a little curious to learn more about his humble beginnings and his trajectory over time in the era that he inhabited.
My least favorite part of the book was learning about George Simpson who was in charge of operations for a greater portion of the 1800's. He messed up a lot of things. He changed the way The Hudson's Bay Company conducted business and created a widespread culture of racism. Up to that point the Natives and their way of life had been largely respected. Many, many company men took Indian wives and many, many employees of The Company were off mixed heritage. Under Simpson's reign none of the native wives were recognized and he phased out hiring or promoting anyone of mixed heritage. He had many native mistress who were cruelly discarded even though they and their families had seen the matches as marriages, and he never recognized any of many illegitimate children. History doesn't look kindly on George Simpson.
And that concludes my review and thoughts on The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire.
This is a beverage that I made up and have been drinking everyday. I hope I am reaping health benefits. I don't really know, but the ingredients are supposed to be really good for you. I think the color is so cheerful and inviting I have dubbed it "Liquid Sunshine."
Black pepper (dash) - good for stuff, and amplifies turmeric's benefits
Lemon juice (splash) - nice flavor
Pour hot water over all the ingredients in a pint jar. Stir well while you drink to keep the herbs from settling out. You want to drink all the dredges.
I have been learning from Doc Jones of the Homegrown Herbalist YouTube channel over the past few years. He has a great sense of humor which is always the number one quality that catches my interest in a teacher. I think his knowledge of herbs is way up there. He was a veterinarian for years and has a lot of clinical experience with herbs working for ailments in animals, a lot of which carries over to human uses. He is also an herbalist and teaches classes online.
Here are videos where he mentions Astragalus, Turmeric and Black Pepper.
I have found it hard to choose a favorite nature photo from this month's collection. I love so many of them!
The first pictures are of Pawpaw blooms. Pawpaw are a fruit tree native to North America. (I wrote a post about Pawpaws a couple few years ago HERE.) They grow in the understory near the edge of forested areas. We visited a historic site this month and while I was there I saw the largest Pawpaw grove that I have ever seen. They had not leafed out yet and they were all in bloom. The blooms are a unique chocolate color.
This next group of pictures is of the tiny unfurled oak leaf with the pollen catkins dangling. So cute!
Here is a pair of mating frogs I found in our pool one morning. I haven't tried to identify what type of frogs these are, but I thought the yellow back legs might help in that pursuit.
We have been hearing SO MANY singing frogs in the night! It is definitely the sound of spring here our part of the world. I shared a Henry Beer poem about Spring Peepers a few years ago that expresses the strangeness of their songs. You can read it HERE.
And the last picture this month is of the beautiful wild Columbine growing in our woods. This might be my favorite, but the Pawpaw buds and the oak leaves are so close to being my favorite that it is hard to choose!
I love the nature imagery used in this song. Here are examples; "all nature sings,"..."birds their carrols raise,"......"rustling grass I hear him pass,"....."rocks and trees,"......"skies and seas,"...," morning light, lily white,"....etc...
Spring is a beautiful time of year and there are so many reminders of God's goodness and power and love of beauty during these months.
This is my Father's world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father's world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
The battle is not done,
Jesus who died shall be satisfied
And earth and Heaven be one.
I like to think of the last word as a homophone- one as in unity, and won as in conquered.
This Bible verse keeps popping in my mind when I sing the last line- "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." (Revelation 11:15b) Handel's Hallelujah Chorus has this verse set to music and it plays in my memory when I read the words. It is so magnificent!
The wrong does oft seem so strong. I like the admonition to remember that God is the ruler yet. This part of the song makes me think of Psalm 73- "And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High? Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches."
"Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end."
I have been busy with poetry lately; writing some myself, reading some, and learning more about the craft.
I recently finished reading aloud The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling to my children. I enjoyed it very much. I had never known that The Jungle Book is several stories in one cover. The first story is about Mowgli and Sheer Kan. The second story is about a white seal in the North Pacific (Stellar Sea Cows are mentioned! I was so excited because I had just learned about Stellar Sea Cows last year when I read Sea Cows, Shamans, and Scurvy by Arnold). The third story is about Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose. The fourth story is about a boy who has a way with elephants. The final story is about many pack animals of the army having a discussion about their labor. That last story gave me a lot of food for thought. I had to reread it again for myself. I feel like there is a deep metaphor in the story and I can't quite grasp the whole meaning; something about consciousness and courage or the greatness of the collective at the expense of individuality. I can't put my finger on it exactly. I am open to ideas, if you have any interpretation on the story, please share them with me.
All this reading of Rudyard Kipling put me in the mood to read some verses written by him.
This is a favorite poem of mine and I learned that I am not alone, apparently, it was the most beloved poem among Brits' at one point. It brings to mind many Biblical proverbs and inspires me to strive toward goodness, strengthen my integrity, and become a more humble person.
What are your thoughts on the poem? How does it make you feel?
If
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
It's March! This is the first month of the year with flowers! We have daffodils and crocuses at our house.
My favorite picture in this month's collection is the picture of the ant. I was entranced when I saw this ant pulling a dried, dusty piece of hotdog up a vertical surface. It was grasping the hotdog particle in its mandibles and going it reverse the whole way up a perfectly straight up and down surface. It blew me away!
I saw some cat paw prints in the light dusting of snow.
This icy surface had a very interesting look. The day before had been very rainy and left a lot of standing water in low spots. The temperature dropped significantly over night and we got to see these ice formations in the morning.
In this post I want to compile some additional resources that I have been using to continue learning about Roald Amundsen.
This page on Cool Antarctica dot com is all about Roald Amundsen's attempts on the North Pole by air. There are real pictures of Amundsen and Elsworth and the airplanes being constructed. And best of all, there are links to real video footage of the men working on the airplanes and getting things ready for their expedition. I was fascinated by the old silent film recordings.
I have gone on to listen to other series on of the Explorers Podcast. Most recently I enjoyed learning about Hiram Bingham's scientific discovery of the Machu Picchu.
I hope you are finding ways to enrich your mind and continue your education. I like what Lydia over at Home Living blog has to say about "homeschooling yourself." She advocates for coming up with subjects and books to keep your mind engaged throughout your whole life. Never stop learning.
My favorite picture of this month's collection is the first picture of the Yucca seeds pod.
This time of year is pretty brown outside. I found some oak galls on an oak sapling. My sons had fun opening them and finding a little wasp pupa (I missed my chance to get a picture of the pupa.)
There are a lot of dried Yucca stalks around our lot. I thought the seed pods looked interesting from these angles.
There are a variety of birds that are active now. I hear woodpeckers in the mornings again. One morning I went outside to jump on our trampoline and found it riddled with these seeds and bird droppings. I deduced that the birds must sit in the branches above and snack and poop out these seeds. I admit the seeds were quite annoying underfoot while they looked pretty interesting. After I had some pictures I looked up some references to find out that these are Hackberry tree seeds.
The explanation for what happened with January's nature pictures is that I was able to capture some beautiful pictures of a gorgeous sunrise when we were in Canada. The morning was so memorable that I wanted to commemorate it with a few verses of poetry. I worked for a whole week on the poem to go with the pictures. After dedicating so much time to the poem I wanted a little recognition so I found a few literary magazines to submit my poem. The catch is that they don't want the poem to be published anywhere else before submission. I didn't want to publish the pictures on my blog without the poem and I can't include the poem until I hear back from the magazines. I don't really expect to get published but I can hope.
This is the 2nd book that I've read/listened to this year. (I listened to the audio version of this book.)
Realm of Ice and Sky by Buddy Levy is all about attempts to reach the North Pole by air, both with dirigibles and airplanes. This book covers 4 major air expeditions. Starting with newspaper man, Wellman, in 1907. Wellman had no experience but confidently believed that the most feasible method to reach the North Pole would be by air ship, and he wanted to be on the cutting edge of exploration. Many people at the time (and even today) didn't take him seriously. The "real" explorers saw his efforts as a publicity stunt. Levy on the other hand insists that Wellman's efforts advanced air ship technology and opened the minds of those "real" explorers to the possibilities of the dirigible. Wellman was serious and his name should be remembered among the "real" explorers according to Levy.
The book starts to get really interesting for me when Roald Amundsen enters the scene. I found Roald Amundsen fascinating! Thankfully, I had had no prior exposure to Amundsen so everything about him read like a fictional tale. It helped that he lived an unbelievably adventurous life with a generous amount of stoicism. He seemed a little extra-human, if you know what I mean. Roald Amundsen made many trips into arctic and antarctic regions. He dreamed of going to the polar regions as a young person after reading grueling accounts from ground breaking explorers that turned out to be his forbearers. Somehow the suffering appealed to him.
Realm of Ice and Sky covers Roald Amundsen's attempt on the North Pole by plane (1925) and then by a Zeppelin air ship (1926.)
The last expedition in the book is Umberto Nobile's flight to the pole in a Zeppelin (1928) and (spoiler alert) crash and subsequent rescue. Nobile had been part of Roald Amundsen's expedition when he reached the North Pole by Zeppelin. The two had had a bitter falling out after that trip. Even after all those hard feelings Amundsen set out to rescue Nobile after hearing of the disaster. I was so happy to hear this. But, as the story kept playing and more and more details where related about how things were going for the stranded Nobile and party, and the different rescue envoys, and radio messages between everyone, it became very obvious that updates from Amundsen were not mentioned. I couldn't wait. I opened my Google browser and typed in, "Roald Amundsen."...... (BIG SPOILER) His date of death is listed as June 1928 Bering Sea. No! Right then I wished that Realm of Ice and Sky had been a work of fiction and Roald Amundsen could have stayed alive. But real life doesn't work that way and Levy had to write the facts.
The conclusion of the book goes over the reemerging use of lighter-than-air crafts. We may see more travel and research done by dirigible in the future.
Overall, I enjoyed this book even though I am generally not a fan of ice and cold. The story is crafted in a very compelling fashion and kept me interested the whole way through.
Frontier Poetry is hosting a themed Haiku contest. The haiku are supposed to be about something with which you have a love/hate relationship.
Yesterday I sat down and wrote these haiku,.. haikus,... (I don't know the correct plural form) to go along with Frontier's contest. (Because the contest has a $10 entry fee I am just doing these for fun not for a real entry.)
The first thing that I could think of that I love/hate is cling wrap. That stuff is so annoying! But it can serve a very useful purpose. I wrote two haiku about cling wrap.
The second thing that I could think of that I love/hate is my phone. It's a really useful tool but can also be a huge time suck and productivity drag. Haiku 3+4 are about the smart phone.
The last haiku is the most thoughtful. It is about neighbors. Jesus said to love our neighbors but I don't always want to. I am pointing out a hypocrisy of Christians that we let little things bother us and keep us from treating our neighbors with love.
I wrote 5 haiku(s) because that is how many you can enter in the contest under one entry.
The contest is open through Feb. 15, 2026. You still have time to enter. The cash prizes are pretty good!
Do you love cling wrap or hate it?
What is the first thing that comes to mind as something you both love and hate?
Here is a quick idea that someone of my readership may also find handy.
I was out of chicken broth and needed some to make tomato soup the other day. I had this idea to use some partially thawed chicken leg quarters to make chicken broth in the soup while I cooked the soup.
I took the skin off a chicken leg quarter and cut it into a few pieces.
After I sweat the onions I added some celery seed to stand in for celery flavor that would have been in chicken broth and a little poultry herb blend.
Then the chicken pieces went in and simmered a couple hours with the soup.
Where the soup called for chicken broth I just added water and it turned into chicken broth while the soup cooked.
The gelatin that comes from the chicken adds a very comforting viscosity and mouth feel that makes for an exceptionally delicious tomato soup.
This turned out to be a great hack and the chicken we removed to eat later had a very good flavor.
Forgive me for dismissing all other pancake recipes in favor of my mom's pancake recipe. Trust me, after tasting this recipe you will need no other pancake recipes.
The stacks of pancakes are so tall and fluffy!
One technique that my mom always emphasizes is to hand mix the batter gently. No, beating or whipping. And it's okay if there are flour lumps left. It's better to have mixed the batter too little than too much.
The Best Pancakes
3 cups Flour
2 TBS. + 1 tsp. Baking Powder
2 tsp. Salt
2 TBS. Sugar
2 1/2 cups Milk
2 Eggs
6 TBS. Butter, Melted
In a large bowl mix together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
In a large measuring cup mix milk, eggs, and butter together.
Combine the two mix. Stir until just starts to become cohesive. The batter will be thick.
Use a 1/4 cup scoop or ladle to pour onto hot griddle or skillet.
Turn pancakes once you see a few bubbles have popped. Cook on the second side about a minute.
I discovered the song Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers back in August of 2025. I became totally mesmerized. According to my YouTube end of year statistics I watched 95 minutes of Northwest Passage (as I recall) and it was my most listened to track for the year.
Since discovering this song and learning the lyrics I have become obsessed with all that I can learn about the explorers and territory of the formidable North. I had to familiarize myself with the landmarks Davis Straight and Beaufort Sea.
I had to learn about explorers David Thompson, Alexander McKinzie, Henry Kelsey, and Sir John Franklin. The more I dug into this subject the more fascinating history and people came into my realm of knowledge. I still have so much more to delve into and study.
So far I have learned very much from the podcast The Other States Of America. The Other States of America goes into a lot of detail about how the Native Peoples' ran their societies, as well as the various European enterprises in the New World. The segments about Champlain are a good place to start.
My children and I enjoyed this old educational video made for TV about the French Voyageurs. The singing highlighted in this video is very jolly and the original account that is narrated makes the experience immersive.
I found this documentary style YouTube video made by Geodiode has some really helpful maps.
I have read this small book about Sir Franklin's expedition. (First book that I read in 2026!)
Last week I found this 123 year old book about American explorers at our local thrift store.
You can imagine my excitement when I saw Franklin's name in one of the chapter titles.
I am hoping to read a book about The Hudson Bay Company this year that my librarian said she can get for me through an interlibrary loan.
And I started this audiobook called Realm of Ice and Sky not because it sounded interesting to me but it kept coming across my screen and I was desperate to find a book to listen to and I wasn't coming up with anything better. To my surprise one of the first topics this book covered had to do with Roald Amundsen and his successful journey through the Northwest Passage!
All this learning is a testament to the powerful influence of music and poetry and I guess ultimately of beauty. In my wildest dreams I would never have been interested in learning about cold places yet I find the lyrics of the Northwest Passage inspiring and so poignant. The way Rogers conveys the excitement of discovery, the awesomeness of nature, and the spirit of those brave men who went into the unknown and untamed is beautiful to me. He was a real poet. He had a gift for putting emotion into words. Not to mention the tune, which I just love! And should I fawn about the fact that it is sung acapella? Acapella music is my favorite type of music!
Are you the kind of person that once your interest is piqued you just go all out after a subject? About what was the last thing you were really excited to learn?
Here I am again reveling in the qualities of caramelized onions!
Several years ago I was talking to my mom on the phone and she told me about this dish that my sister had made called an Onion Galette. She said it was delicious. Ever since then I have wanted to try making one.
