H.S.M. (Harold) Kemp was born in the U.K. in 1892 and came to the North-West Territories as a boy. At age sixteen he began working for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Three years later he joined the Revillon Frères, then the HBC’s great rival. His Northern Trader is the only full-scale recollection of the fur trade we have by a "French Company" man.