Dunvegan Post Journals for 1806 and 1808.

Payne, David W. Leonard Michael

Dunvegan Post Journals for 1806 and 1808, 64 pp., Illus., maps, $19.95: and Dunvegan Post Journals for 1822 to 1830,143 pp., Illus., maps, $19.95. Both from Peace Heritage Press, #240, 10127-121 Street, Edmonton, AB, T5N 3X1.

Dunvegan Post, in the Peace River area, was an important centre for almost a century. It is also the place where a few fur trading records survived to tell the graphic story of life in the Peace country.

Dunvegan was a key trading post for the Beaver tribe but also served the Cree and Sikani, while free trappers included Iroquois, Saulteaux, and Metis.

Starvation was never far away from the fort, both for traders and Natives. For example, in January 1825, a trader reported, "Cold weather, no word from our Hunters, it is really alarming, our stock of dry meat is almost finished & the men on half allowances for this some time past."

Most of the entries in the journal deal with trading, hunting (including buffalo), caring for gardens, gathering bark for canoes and roofs, and with the activities of individual employees. Very little violence occurred at the post, even though liquor was served in limited quantities. However, there were exceptions. In April 1823 the trader reported, "One of the Clerks having gone to order three men to start in the morning, and as he was in the act of retiring out of the House one of the fellows Antoine Perreault a Half breed stabbed him in two different places..." There is no indication that any punishment took place.

Edited by David W. Leonard and Michael Payne, these two books are well worth reading for anyone interested in the fur trade and the Peace country.