John McLean

author

John McLean

1799–1890

Drawn from a life of fur trade travel and frontier work, these pages carry the feel of lived experience. This 19th-century Scottish-Canadian writer is best remembered for turning years in British North America into vivid firsthand narrative.

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 in Scotland around 1799, he emigrated to British North America and joined the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. Over the course of his life he worked in many roles, including fur trader, explorer, clerk, businessman, newspaperman, and author.

He is especially associated with the far north and interior of what is now Canada, where his travels and work gave him direct knowledge of the land, trade routes, and daily life in remote posts. That experience later shaped his writing, which is valued for its firsthand picture of the fur trade world.

McLean died in 1890. He is remembered not only as an explorer and company man, but as a writer who preserved a detailed record of 19th-century life in British North America.