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By 1670, it was clear that there were fortunes to be made from the fur trade.
British North America (as Canada was then known) was seen as a wild land full of natural resources just waiting to be exploited. There were millions of beaver and their furs were in demand.
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A number of prominent businessmen in England quickly established the Hudson’s Bay Company, and laid claim to a large portion of the Canadian interior.
Over the next 50 years, most Scots that sailed to Canada came to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company. In time, the Hudson’s Bay Company's dominance of the fur trade was threatened by a group of Scots fur traders that formed the North West Company.
'It was the Scots-dominated fur trade that pushed European Canadians west toward the Rockies and launched a 30-year turf war that makes many of today’s drug gangs look like a bunch of Sunday school kids.'
'How the Scots created Canada', Paul Cowan, 2007
The images used above are licensed under Creative Commons on Flickr by the following photographers: Deacon Steve and Musée McCord Museum.
The other image (trapper) is courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland.
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