Biography

Helen Webster is a fifth generation Canadian and the granddaughter of T. Robert Ross, the real life trader´s son in this story. Growing up, Helen was enthralled with the stories her grandfather told. This “larger than life” man ignited in her a passion for writing, for research, and for the interconnected history of Canada and the Hudson´s Bay Company. She knew that someday she would recount his story for all to read. She had access to original source materials including Robert´s letters, his stories, and his journals, all of which provide a richly detailed narrative of the times.

Books by Helen Webster

About the Book

What makes a survivor?

Born in Quebec in 1850, Maggie's life-story is one of over- coming hardships with courage and resilience.

At fifteen, her family lost their wealth when her father died deeply in debt. As a result of this reversal of fortune, she found herself, at seventeen, letting go of her own dreams and entering into an arranged marriage. By age twenty-four she had borne five children. By age twenty-five, she and her children, the youngest an infant of just three months, endured an arduous trek of a thousand miles into the wilderness of northern Ontario, following her husband to his new job posting with the Hudson's Bay Company. For almost two decades, she lived in isolation in a cabin in the vast loneliness of the north woods, where she bore five more children and fulfilled the role of an HBC Company wife. She was forced to endure the humiliation and insult of her husband's countless liaisons with other women. Over the years of their marriage, her husband, already a domineering man, became physically abusive to the point that she began to fear for her life and the lives of the children.

At age forty-four, she and the children were uprooted again in her husband's relentless pursuit of promotion with the Company and they made the long journey back to Quebec.

How did she survive?

About the Book

Written from the unique perspective of a young man growing up with his trader father on various Hudson´s Bay Company posts in Quebec and Ontario, Trader´s Son tells the story of T. Robert Ross, who becomes an HBC trader himself, before going on to medical school at Queen´s University.

Born and raised in the family tradition of employment by the HBC, Robert´s story begins in 1883. It is one of survival in the wilds of northern Ontario, told against the complex background of family and Company expectations, pivotal events in Canadian history and Robert´s dramatic adventures as a young Bay Man. His life is also shaped by the diminishing supply of furs and the subsequent impact on the Company, and the great changes within the HBC itself as it moves from a barter economy to a retail empire.

Living in the wilderness, where life and death decisions are an everyday occurrence, Robert´s finely honed decision making skills serve him well as he grows to adulthood.