"Captivated by the tales of adventure in the wild northwest told by the voyageurs, fifteen-year-old George Nelson left his family in southern Canada in 1802 and headed out to the Northwest Territory to begin a five-year contract working for Sir Alexander Mackenzie's XY Company, one of the major fur trade companies of the time. His growth from homesick lad to experienced fur trader over the next two years forms the heart of this journal." "His journals are also valuable for their candid observations on the customs and culture of the Ojibwa people and provide some of the most detailed descriptions of Ojibwa spiritual practices. While he certainly viewed the Ojibwa through the eyes of the son of a schoolmaster from England, Nelson's writings show his open-minded acceptance of a people whose way of life was different from his. Nelson was far more ready than many traders to value Ojibwa culture as equal to his own."--Jacket.