In this video of a presentation he gave in October 2008, historian George Colpitts of the University of Calgary discusses how the records kept in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives can be used to study the history of climate in Canada. The records kept by the trading posts and ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company have been used by many different types of Canadian historians (economic historians, gender historians, Native Land Claims researchers). Now they are being used by environmental historians working on the very important topic of historical climate change.
HBC Ships in Hudson Strait, Summer 1819
Colpitts gave this presentation at the Canadian Climate History workshop at the University of Western Ontario. You can watch the other presentations here.
Image Source: Library and Archives Canada.
The Past Speaks 
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