By Isabel Mink and Tessa Ladner, Grade 9

Nearly tumbling and sliding over the slick mud of a newly fallen rain, the grade 9 social studies class tore over campus in search of valuable items to trade for their beaver pelts.

After several long and strenuous journeys the students returned with many useful European goods such as sewing needles and beaver traps. Unfortunately most of the grade 9 student body was killed by a relentless disease called smallpox which, carried by a vast majority of the traded merchandise, wiped out the innocent traders.

This was a learning activity in which all the grade 9 classes all participated in last week. The objective of the venture was to put oneself in the shoes of a Native Canadian trader, and use stealth and cunning to trade one's beaver pelts for the highest quality and most necessary items. It was a fantastic way to learn about the competitive speed, crafty bartering, and losses and gains of fur trading in Canada and above all it was ridiculously fun!

The fur trade between Europeans and Native Canadians led to the founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company, a large enterprise we now know as ‘the Bay’. It shaped our country, influencing the Natives with European culture, as well as almost wiping out the Native population with the introduction of smallpox. Our lives today would be drastically different if the Natives had not made contact with the Europeans through the fur trade.

The grade 9 Social Studies classes would like to thank the following teachers for acting as the HBC actors and who made the trading such an adventure: Ms. Wittmann, Ms. Breslin, Mr. Webster, Mr. McMullan, Ms. Lee, Ms. Esdaile, Mrs. McGee, Mr. Davidov, Mrs. Hurley and Ms Danieli as well as grade 11 students Stephanie Valdez and Cali McTavish .