John McLean

author

John McLean

1799–1890

Best known for vivid firsthand writing about the fur trade and exploration in British North America, this Scottish-born adventurer turned a life of canoe routes, trading posts, and hard travel into memorable books. His work stands out for bringing readers close to the landscapes and daily realities of the Hudson’s Bay Company world.

2 Audiobooks

Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Volume II.

Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Volume II.

by John McLean

Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Volume I.

Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Volume I.

by John McLean

About the author

Born on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, he emigrated to British North America and became many things over the course of his life: fur trader, explorer, clerk, newspaperman, and author. Sources consistently describe him as a longtime Hudson’s Bay Company man whose experience in the field shaped the books he later wrote.

He is especially remembered for major journeys through Labrador and for travel across northern North America by canoe and on foot. Reference works also credit him with writing about those years in a way that preserved firsthand details of frontier life, trade, and exploration for later readers.

He died in 1890. For readers interested in travel writing, exploration history, or early Canadian frontier life, his books offer the perspective of someone who was not just observing events from afar, but living them.