The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History is a book written by Harold Innis covering the fur trade era in Canada from the early 16th century to the 1920s. First published in 1930, it comprehensively documents the history of fur trading while extending Innis's analysis of the economic and social implications of Canada's reliance on staple products. The book focuses on the far-reaching effects of new techniques and technologies in the contact between European and Indigenous civilizations and shows how co-operation and rivalries among French, English and Indigenous peoples shaped the history of the northern half of North America. Finally, the book tries to show how Canada emerged as a nation with boundaries largely determined by the fur trade. Canada, Innis argues, "emerged not in spite of geography, but because of it."[1][2][3]
What follows is a detailed summary of The Fur Trade in Canada with comments, analysis and assessments from scholars who have studied and written about it.