Dr. Edward Rogers, head of Department of Ethnology at the Royal Ontario Museum, professor of anthropology at McMaster, long-time researcher, friend, and associate of Canada's Native peoples, saw the need for this historical study. In the late 70s he began work on the project but died in 1988 before finishing the volume. Donald Smith, a phD student of Dr. Rogers's in the early 1970s and a member of the History Department of the University of Calgary since 1974, completed the editing.