For 113 years, from 1805 to 1918, the small "finely situated" fur trade outpost of Fort Dunvegan was the focus of events in the Peace River region. Built by Archibald Norman McLeod, a famous Nor’Wester, Dunvegan, meaning fortress, was the centre of trade for the Beaver Indians. With the amalgamation of the North West and Hudson’s Bay companies in 1821, the Fort continued in its dual role of trading furs and supplying meat to the Athabasca District. There was never a year when it did not make "at least a small profit."

Daniel Francis is an historian and the author/editor of more than twenty books, including five for Arsenal Pulp Press: The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture , National Dreams: Myth, Memory and Canadian History, LD: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver (winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award), Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada's First War on Terror and Imagining Ourselves: Classics of Canadian Non-Fiction. His other books include A Road for Canada, Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade, Copying People: Photographing British Columbia First Nations 1860-1940, The Great Chase: A History of World Whaling, New Beginnings: A Social History of Canada, and the popular Encyclopedia of British Columbia. He is also a regular columnist in Geist magazine, and was shortlisted for Canada's History Pierre Berton Award in 2010. Daniel lives in North Vancouver, BC.

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Michael Payne is Head of Research and Publications for the Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development. He is author of The Most Respectable Place in the Territory: Everyday Life in the Hudson’s Bay Company Service York Factory, 1788 to 1870 and articles on the fur trade and Western Canadian history. A graduate of Queen’s University, the University of Manitoba, and Carleton, he lives in Edmonton.

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