Pemmican Empire

George Colpitts is Associate Professor of History at the University of Calgary.

• Introduction; 1. Changing food-energy regimes in the northern fur trade, 1760–90; 2. The pemmican bioregion, 1790–1810; 3. Food fights and pemmican wars, 1790–1816; 4. Selling bison flesh in the British market after 1821; 5. Commercial war zones in the bison commons, 1835–50; 6. Ending the pemmican era; Conclusion.

'At last we have the sweeping story of the destruction of the buffalo herds of North America, not as a subject of natural history but as an inquiry into man's depredations - from the first employment of the mammal's flesh and fat for the making of pemmican, which was the fuel of the fur traders that enabled the spanning of the continent to the Columbia Country, right through to the savage and debilitating corporate wars and rivalries across the forty-ninth parallel. Thoroughly researched and finely written, this distinguished contribution to historical studies tells the tragic story of a world we have lost as individuals, corporations, tribes, and Metis all sought to maximize their benefits in the profligate search for food and for hides. It is a story of universal importance.' Barry Gough, Wilfrid Laurier University