You’d never want to put the adjective “fair” in front of the kind of trade that Fred Stenson writes about in this absorbing historical novel. He’s concerned with the fur trade, in what is now Western Canada, from 1822 to 1867. It was a time when the beaver was disappearing, the buffalo were not as plentiful as they once were, and men and women – native, Métis, and white – were being destroyed by ill-considered policies and official racism.

Stenson mixes fictionalized letters and convincingly imagined scenes as he chronicles several lives. One of them is that of Edward Harriott, brought from England as a boy to work in the trade; he steadfastly loves his Métis cousin Margaret, even though she goes mad. Other players include the trader One Pound One – the name given to John Rowand because of the sound he makes when he limps – and Jimmy Jock Bird, the Métis son of a former company governor.

This is not Stenson’s first foray into history: he’s the author of several books about such subjects as the RCMP in the West and the Rocky Mountain House trading post. He also is an accomplished fiction writer, having won the Canadian Authors Association Silver Medal for fiction. In The Trade he combines good storytelling with solid historical research.

For a project of my own I spent several months reading documents by fur traders, and it seems to me that Stenson captures both the tone of their reports and letters home and the anguish many felt about what the trade was doing to them – and to those they traded with. In a note at the end of the novel, Stenson says he “tried to read between the lines of known fur trade history.” This he has done brilliantly. The book is a must-read for all Canadian history buffs, as well as for those who care about those who share this planet with us.