Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636/1640–1710) was a French fur trader and explorer in New France. The decision of Radisson and Groseilliers to enter the English service led to the formation of the Hudson’s Bay Company. His career was particularly notable for its repeated transitions between serving Britain and France.

Groseilliers and Radisson traveled to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They organized another expedition into Hudson Bay in 1663, but it was turned back by the ice. At Boston in 1665 they met Sir George Cartwright, who told them to travel to England to gain support.

Radisson, Pierre-Esprit In 1659 he was taken on an unlicenced fur-trading expedition to Lakes Superior and Michigan by his sister’s husband, Médard Chouart DES GROSEILLIERS. In the lands beyond they found a “great store of beaver” and heard of “the Bay of the North Sea” that gave direct access to the region.

Radisson and des Groseilliers. The Hudson’s Bay Company played a leading role in the European expansion into the Canadian West. The British fur trading giant began with a most unlikely pair of French fur traders – Mdard Chouart des Groseilliers and his more flamboyant brother-in-law, Pierre Esprit Radisson.

Pierre-Esprit Radisson (1636–1710) and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers (1618–1710), were the first Europeans to penetrate deep into the forest belt of northern Canada, to negotiate trading agreements with the Cree, to explore the upper reaches of the Mississippi and Missouri, and to establish the durable trading …

Forts Orange (the present site of Albany, New York) and Amsterdam were established as trading posts shortly thereafter. Some of the earliest English trading post records date to 1662, when ten pounds of tobacco were traded for furs to make a hat.

He opened his trading post in 1876 and it still exists, having been taken over by the National Park Service as a tourist attraction to show how an old-fashioned trading post operated. You can still buy everything from basic supplies to finely woven Navajo rugs there.

A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, was an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to trade in goods produced in another area.

When the various European colonies were first established in North America, the settlements were located close to the trade gathering sites of the First Nations. A trading post was a general store where furs could be traded, but it wasn’t only that.

The North West Company was formed in Montreal, Canada in the mid-1780s from a partnership of British merchants who wanted to counter the monopoly over the fur trade by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The North West Company established a large post at Grand Portage and built several other forts to house wintering voyageurs.

Posts near waterways allowed for easier movement of goods and _furs. This helped traders acquire more furs and led to higher profits.