Books b y Geoff Mynett
Murders on the Skeena
,
1884-1914
Caitlin Press, 2021
Peeling back historical, social, political, and geographical layers, Murders on the Skeena draws almost exclusively from documents from the time to reveal the fascinating secrets and surprising consequences of these captivating true crime tales.
Pinkerton’s and the Hunt for Simon Gunanoot,
by Geoff Mynett,
Caitlin Press, 2021
“All these searches—by police, irregulars and bounty hunters—achieved nothing. People assumed that the police would eventually realize the obvious: Gunanoot, a Gitxsan trapper familiar with the country, could never be caught. They assumed the police had given up.
They were wrong. Superintendent Hussey and the attorney general were not going to give up. Sometime in the spring of 1909, Hussey picked up his telephone and spoke to Philip K. Ahern, head of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency in Seattle, and explained his problem.”
Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician
by Geoff Mynett
,
Ronsdale Press, 2019
"Dr. Wrinch was probably the most influential man, and the best liked man that ever blessed the district with his presence. He won the love of his fellow citizens by his service, his kindness and his outstanding ability as a leader, administrator and as a real friend in time of need. The district profited greatly from his life spent here and no monument to his memory is needed so long as the youngest resident remains. . . . Dr. Wrinch was appreciated by the people as was proven by their loyalty to him over the years. He never made an appeal that was not heartily responded to. He was given every position of trust and honour in the gift of the people." The Omineca Herald October 1939
A Gentleman of Considerable Talent: William Brown and the Fur Trade, 1811-1827.
To be published in the autumn of 2024.
A Gentleman of Considerable Talent presents fascinating insight into the early years of Canada’s fur trade, told through the life of Hudson’s Bay Company trader William Brown.
In 1811, twenty-one-year-old William Brown arrived in Rupert’s Land from the small Scottish village of Kilmaurs. Employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company during perhaps the most conflict ridden years of British North America’s history, Brown set out on the path of the ordinary fur trader. Brown’s time with the HBC is marked by hardship and strife: he struggled to survive during long, hard, hungry winters, and the fierce conflict with men of the rival North West Company during the Pemmican War. He found himself embroiled in the churning politics of the time, playing a role in the mutiny on the waters of the Hudson Bay—throughout, Brown showed he had both the brawn and brains to make a difference.
Described by Governor George Simpson as a zealous gentleman of considerable talent, Brown would go on to establish Fort Kilmaurs in New Caledonia, now Northern BC, and emerge as a pioneering explorer of the Babine and Bulkley Rivers, fueled by the dream of being the first HBC trader to reach the Pacific Ocean via the Skeena River. While not a powerful figure in his own right, Brown nonetheless left a mark on the development of the nation. Through letters and entries in the HBC journals, he gives us a rich picture of the era through his journals. In A Gentleman of Considerable Talent: William Brown and the Fur Trade, 1811–1827, award-winning historian Geoff Mynett delivers the fascinating story of a Hudson’s Bay everyman and the tumultuous conditions of Canada’s fur trade.