Scientific Practice and the Scientific Self in Rupert's Land, c.1770–1830

This chapter studies features of scientific practice, intellectual sociability and scientific identity formation at fur trading posts in Rupert’s Land c.1770–1830. ¹ Rupert’s Land was the name given to the Hudson Bay watershed, the territory over which the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) had exclusive trading rights in 1670–1870 – rights which were extended to the Pacific coast in 1821 with the amalgamation of the HBC and its former rival, the Northwest Company (NWC). In the period, the vast region now known as Canada (a term which then referred mainly to the present-day provinces of Ontario and Quebec) was the site of competition and cooperation between indigenous, British, French settler, American and Russian interests, for its lucrative fur trade and for its potential to contribute significantly to scientific and geographical knowledge. The HBC and NWC themselves played important roles in the gathering and dissemination of knowledge on North America, particularly after 1770. ² Fur traders’ identities as men of science were of course closely linked to the scientific practices they undertook in Rupert’s Land, but were also dependent upon the local and global networks available to them as employees of a major trading company. This chapter examines fur traders’ practices, exchanges and interactions to demonstrate the interrelated nature of global and local knowledge, while also considering the extent to which attempts to engage in the dominant form of global knowledge gathering represented as ‘colonial science’ hampered engagement with local, indigenous forms of knowledge.