Reader, I take for granted that you are tolerably well acquainted with the different modes of life and travelling peculiar to European nations. I also presume that you know something of the inhabitants of the East, and, it may be, a good deal of the Americans in general. But I suspect-at least I would fain hope-that you have only a vague and indefinite knowledge of life in those wild, uncivilized regions of the northern continent of America that surround the shores of Hudson Bay. I would fain hope this, I say, that I may have the satisfaction of giving you information on the subject, and of showing you that there is a body of civilized men who move, and breathe (pretty cool air, by the way!), and spend their lives in a quarter of the globe as totally different, in most respects, from the part you inhabit..." - Chapter 1