Kisiskatchewan: The Great River Road

Kisiskatchewan: The Great River Road by Barbara Huck. This book is based on journal entries by William Tomison, a native Orkneyman hired in 1760 as a labourer by the Hudson’s Bay Company, who rose to become “Governor, Inland.” These writings paint an outline of life at a time when smallpox swept across the northern Great Plains and the determined march west of European traders transformed North America forever. This book faithfully follows Tomison’s journals, but goes beyond them to recreate this turbulent period in our history. Given his egalitarian outlook and his vision for the west, William Tomison might well be called the first real Western Canadian. HLT. ISBN: 978-1-896150-74-1, $22.95, 352 pp., pb. Cover: trade paper. Historical fiction.