Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Bush Runner
Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson | Mark Bourrie
6 posts | 4 read | 1 to read
Murderer. Salesman. Pirate. Adventurer. Cannibal. Co-founder of the Hudson's Bay Company. Known to some as the first European to explore the upper Mississippi, and widely as the namesake of ships and hotel chains, Pierre-Esprit Radisson is perhaps best described, writes Mark Bourrie, as “an eager hustler with no known scruples.” Kidnapped by Mohawk warriors at the age of fifteen, Radisson assimilated and was adopted by a powerful family, only to escape to New York City after less than a year. After being recaptured, he defected from a raiding party to the Dutch and crossed the Atlantic to Holland—thus beginning a lifetime of seized opportunities and frustrated ambitions. A guest among First Nations communities, French fur traders, and royal courts; witness to London’s Great Plague and Great Fire; and unwitting agent of the Jesuits’ corporate espionage, Radisson double-crossed the English, French, Dutch, and his adoptive Mohawk family alike, found himself marooned by pirates in Spain, and lived through shipwreck on the reefs of Venezuela. His most lasting venture as an Artic fur trader led to the founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which operates today, 350 years later, as North America’s oldest corporation. Sourced from Radisson’s journals, which are the best first-hand accounts of 17th century Canada, Bush Runner tells the extraordinary true story of this protean 17th-century figure, a man more trading partner than colonizer, a peddler of goods and not worldview—and with it offers a fresh perspective on the world in which he lived.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
quote
Singout

His description of his captivity among the Iroquois makes it clear that Radisson liked them, and that they in turn were both flattered and intrigued by the young man…His writings about life among the Iroquois have very few of the usual insults and slurs against Indigenous peoples that show up in the books written by Champlain, the Jesuits, and the few other Europeans who left a record of their time in the Great Lakes country.

blurb
Singout
post image

So very happy that this book by my smart and dedicated friend of 28 years won the final RBC Taylor nonfiction award today!

Nute Congratulations to your friend! 5y
7 likes1 comment
review
rabbitprincess
Pickpick

I found this account of Radisson's life fascinating and at times novelesque. I cannot believe how many times he double-crossed people! But he double-crossed pretty much everybody. Recommended if you want to know more about "that hotel chain guy".