John Long's journal, 1768-1782

Arriving in North America in 1768, a young English clerk soon traded his city shoes for the moccasins of the Great Lakes frontier. Over the next decade he immersed himself in the lives of the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Chippewa, mastering their languages and even being adopted by a prominent Chippewa chief. His journal records the everyday rituals, trade practices, and the stark beauty of the lands that stretched from Lake Ontario to the remote waterways of the Nipigon district.

When the American Revolution erupted, he exchanged his interpreter’s notebook for a soldier’s coat, leading Indigenous war parties for the British and witnessing the clash of cultures on the war’s frontiers. After his service he turned to the fur trade, guiding voyageurs through a maze of lakes and rivers that formed a watery wilderness of hundreds of leagues. Throughout his travels he offers vivid sketches of native customs, the precarious balance between French and English traders, and the relentless drive of explorers seeking the prized furs of the Northwest.