Hudson's Bay Company Post Journals
Editors' Preface

The 1841 - 1843 journal of the Thompson River Post of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) is the first of a series of planned publications documenting the HBC's activities in the southern interior of British Columbia. This post was located at the confluence of the north and south branches of the Thompson River near the Secwepemc (Shuswap) village of Tk'emlul'pe'/ ( Kamloops) whose inhabitants were called the Tk'emlupsemc. Trading began at the site in 1811 with the visit of David Stuart, an employee of the Pacific Fur Company. In 1813 all assets of the Pacific Fur Company were acquired by the North West Company which occupied the post until the merger with the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides the present journal, the extant journals include the "Thompson's River Journal, 1822 - 1823," kept by James McMillan and John McLeod, the "Journal of Occurrences at Thompson's River, 1826 - 1827," kept by Archibald McDonald, the"Thompson's River Journal, 1854 - 1855," kept by Paul Fraser, the "Kamloops Journal, 1859 - 1862," kept by William Manson, and the "Kamloops Journal, 1867 - 1870," kept by C.T. Moffat. As well, numerous letters, inventories, district reports, and account books have survived, some of which may be published.

Presenting the Thompson's River post journal kept by John Tod and Donald Manson to an audience in electronic format demanded editorial decisions that should be explained to readers. The journal is presented in one continuous file with page breaks indicated by the image of a quill drawing a line across the page. The text is presented as closely as possible to the manuscript. Spelling errors or inconsistencies are presented without correction and without editorial comment (i.e. by the use of "sic"). Proofreading has been done closely enough to ensure that spelling errors are limited to those made in the original manuscript. The journal writers' conventions in the use of capitals and punctuation have been retained. The journalists made liberal use of capitals and because it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between upper and lower case letters in the manuscript, editorial discretion was at times required. Punctuation was inconsistent; some sentences ended with periods, others without periods, and others with elongated marks that have been represented by underscores. Most of the linked biographies are taken (with permission) from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and in those biographies DCB conventions are retained. For example, surnames of persons whose biographies appear in the same volume are presented in upper case letters, and an asterisk following a name indicates that a biography appears in a previously published volume. Links to other internet sites are meant to facilitate further research in the form of related maps, photographs, documents and secondary materials.

Acknowledgements

We thank the numerous persons who have contributed to the publication of this journal. Judith Hudson Beattie, Keeper of the Hudson's Bay Company Archives was kind in her permission to publish this and other journals. The British Columbia Archives, which holds the manuscript, gave its permission and archivist Francis Gundry gave generously of her time and thought in editing and publishing the journal. Numerous students at Okanagan University College contributed to the publication as part of their university sponsored summer employment. We thank them for their skill and perseverance in deciphering a sometimes very indistinct manuscript, typescripting the journal, converting it to HTML format, and contributing in a variety of other ways. Sarah Purdy, Debbie Bowman, and Samantha Sager all contributed cheerfully and enthusiastically. Finally, we thank the Royal British Columbia Museum and Okanagan University College for their continuing support.

Thompson River Post
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