TRADE GOODS AND CURRENCY
THE HUDSON BAY COMPANY AND THE NORTH WEST COMPANY

Grade Level:
6^th-8^th

Standards Integration:
Minnesota:
Grade 6-8: Write and Speak-Interpersonal Communication
2. Solving a problem or settling a dispute, and giving a demonstration or presenting new information for in a small group.
Inquiry and Research-Accessing Information
6. Answering the question or supporting a position by synthesizing information.

North Dakota:
Grades 5-8: Social Studies-Geography
8.6.4 Understand how human activity affects the physical environment.
Language Arts-Students Engage in Speaking and Listening Process 6.8.4 Give and receive feedback.

Materials:
None

Objectives:

	The students will act as both Native and immigrant traders to recreate the demand for fur and the repercussions of that demand.
	The students will use sound justification and valid arguments to state their opinions about the function of the fur trade.
	As a result of the recreation and discussion, students can start to understand the concept of supply and demand.

Background:
The Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company were the primary trading companies in the Red River Valley in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Each fought for control of the fur trade in the Upper Midwest and North West Territories (the future Dominion of Canada). The companies were strong rivals for control of the market on beaver pelts, as well as for control over the land and goods owned by the indigenous people of the area. Eventually the two companies merged (1821), but beaver had been decimated and the merged companies had to find other bases for a trade economy. Consequently they focused on the bison as a commodity.

Pre-Visit Activity:
Create a scenario for 2 small groups of students. One group will act as traders for the Hudson’s Bay Company or the North West Company. Note that these were prominent fur trading companies in the Red River Valley. The second group will act as Natives with extensive and crucial knowledge of the geographical area. Explain to the students that the fur trade as such is non-existent today, so they will have to find something other than fur as their main form of currency. Their goal is to subsist in an economy based on that commodity. Ask the students to recreate through role-playing what might happen to the two companies. Use their reactions to explain the concept of supply and demand.

Post-Visit Activity:
Discuss the impact of the trading companies on the Red River Valley (human communities, animal populations, the ecological environment). Ask the students to share their opinions on the demand for beaver pelts as currency, the merger of the two companies, and the shift to a demand for bison pelts and meat as currency.