Here is a modern, authoritative, and readable history of Manitoba written by a well-known native of that province. “My native province,” says Professor Morton, “has always seemed to me an unusual and fascinating place, possessed at once of a history of great interest and a deep sense of history.”

The narrative begins with the early year of the seventeenth century when the fur trade around Hudson Bay began, and covers every step in the growth of Manitoba from those days to the present. Interwoven are the essential themes of immigration and patterns of settlement, conflict and compromise among the many national and religious groups in Manitoba, the development of a distinctive economic and social structure, the growth of political consciousness, and the deep-seated conflict between the east-west and north-south axes.

W.L. Morton was Vanier Professor of History at Trent University from 1966 to 1975 and is once more Professor of History at the University of Manitoba, now on a post-retirement basis to lead a seminar in the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was awarded the Tyrrel Medal of the Royal Society of Canada in 1968, and made an Office of the Order of Canada in 1969. He is the author of The Canadian Identity and The Progressive Party in Canada.

W.L. Morton's profile page

"With this volume provincial history has come of age, both as a subject of study itself and as a field where a most striking contribution can be made to Canadian history as a whole. There should not have been any doubt before; there cannot be any doubt now. This is a first-class book, an exciting book. Canadian historical studies need nothing so much as nine other volumes of the same calibre and scope."

Canadian Historical Review

"This is more than an excellent history of Manitoba. Its earlier chapters are also the story of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the fur trade of northern North America, the Selkirk struggle with the North West Company, the metis and their significance for Canadian history and the background of Canadian unity as finally achieved.

"Fresh interpretations appear everywhere. The author has gone to the best sources and has used them with discrimination."

Pacific Historical Review