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Nobuhiro Kishigami, John R. Bockstoce. Furs and Frontiers in the Far North: The Contest among Native and Foreign Nations for the Bering Strait Fur Trade. Foreword by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. (The Lamar Series in Western History.) New Haven: Yale University Press. 2009. Pp. xx, 472. $35.00, The American Historical Review, Volume 115, Issue 3, June 2010, Pages 814–815, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.115.3.814
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There is a view that until recently Alaska existed on a periphery outside even the periphery of the world system. However, this book indicates that such was not always the case. The Alaskan region where aboriginal peoples, Russians, British, Americans, and others engaged in fur trade played an important role in supplying resources to China and Europe from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. During this period, Alaska was linked in several ways through the fur trade to contemporary political-economic centers around the world.
John R. Bockstoce describes the historical development of the fur trade in the region in separate chapters focusing on trade among the indigenous peoples, their trade with the Russian-American Company (RAC), the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and foreign whaling and trading ships. He then describes the impacts of fur trading activities on the indigenous societies.
Although trading activities between Chukchi in the Chukotka Peninsula and Alaskan natives across the Bering Strait before the nineteenth century have been documented, there is very little detailed information relating to these activities. Bockstoce, with careful use of existing written documents, demonstrates that this trade was developed through the Ostrovnoe trade fair, which was established by Russian officials on the Maly Aniui River, 800 miles west of the Bering Strait, in 1789. This trade created an enormous demand for furs among the Chukchi who were not able to obtain them locally and thus were required to obtain them through trade with the Alaskan peoples. This trade involved the Chukchi and Siberian Yupik on the Siberian side, and Yupik, Inupiaq, and other indigenous groups on the Alaskan side. The Siberian natives exchanged reindeer furs, tobacco, tea, alcohol, local products, and European goods. In return, they received a variety of furs such as fox, beaver, river otter, and marten from Inupiaq and Yupik traders in Alaska. Bockstoce demonstrates that aboriginal people from more than fifty ethnic groups were skillful traders, interacting with the RAC and the HBC as the two companies competed with each other for Alaskan furs. In the mid-nineteenth century, RAC traders attempted to intercept furs that the Alaskan natives traded to the Chukchi, while the HBC traders in inland Alaska tried to intercept furs that the indigenous people traded to the RAC posts.
