Name/Title
The Journals of William Fraser Tolmie: Physician and Fur TraderEntry/Object ID
979.5 T585j Copy 6Description
The Journal of a Pioneer Surgeon of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Pacific Northwest 1830-1843
WILLIAM FRASER TOLMIE, Scottish born and educated, began a diary in 1830, while a medical student in Glasgow, in which he made entries until 1843.
In that time he recorded his long sea voyage to the Columbia River via Cape Horn and the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, his life at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver and Fort Nusqually in what is now the State of Washington, and at Fort McLoughlin trading with the Indians of the northern British Columbia coast.
Physician and surgeon though he was by training, Tolmie added the duties of fur trader and pursued his strong avocational interest in the geography, natural history, anthropology and languages of a wilderness country and its native peoples.
Often depressed by his isolation in what was then one of the remotest outposts of civilization in all the world, filled with inherent love of learning, young Dr. Tolmie returned to Britain and to familiar haunts of Paris in 1842. He describes France and Paris of that time in interesting detail. But the wilderness of the scenic Northwest Pacific called him and he gave the rest of his life to the Washington Territory and to the British Colonial region based on Victoria.
His early diaries of medical school and of fur trade days are in the Archives of the Province of British Columbia. They are here published for the first time – a veritable mine of information for those who would know the commonplaces of a hazardous life through the daily journals of an educated man. Tolmie not only observed but participated in the bringing of the white man's civilization to the still-disputed territory then known as the Oregon Country.
In Victoria from 1859 until his death, Dr. Tolmie played a respected role in the affairs of the new land. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of Vancouver Island. He raised a large family of sons and daughters, amongst them Dr. Simon Fraser Tolmie who became premier of British Columbia after a distinguished career at Ottawa. He lived and died in the farmstead home, "Cloverdale", where his pioneering father had settled when fur days were over.Book Details
Author
Tolmie, William FraserDate Published
Jan 1, 1963 - Dec 31, 1963Call No.
979.5 T585j Copy 6Notes
Copy No. 6