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Isobel (or Isobella) Gunn (1 August 1781 – 7 November 1861), also known as John Fubbister or Mary Fubbister, was a Scottish labourer employed by the
Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...
(HBC), noted for having passed herself off as a man, thereby becoming the first European woman to travel to
Rupert's Land Rupert's Land (french: Terre de Rupert), or Prince Rupert's Land (french: Terre du Prince Rupert, link=no), was a territory in British North America which comprised the Hudson Bay drainage basin; this was further extended from Rupert's Land ...
, now part of
Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada– ...
.


Early life

Gunn was born in Orphir on the
Orkney Islands Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
off the north coast of Scotland, near the town of
Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...
. She was the daughter of John Gunn and Margaret Leask. Little is known of her early life until the summer of 1806, when, under the
pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individu ...
John Fubbister, she entered into a contract with the HBC as a labourer for three years at £8 per year. Although her motivations for doing so are uncertain, tradition holds that she may have been following a lover who had cast her aside. Her brother George was also employed by the HBC, and it is also possible that she was enticed to join by his stories of adventure. Modern commentators point out that the modest HBC salary was nevertheless more than Gunn could have earned as a woman in Orkney at that time. Official HBC policy forbade employment of European women, although
First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
women were employed as cooks and
domestic servants A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service ...
in company outposts.


Discovery and return to Scotland

In the Autumn of 1807 Gunn was assigned to a brigade tasked with provisioning more distant outposts, and travelled with them to Martin Falls and then on to the HBC outpost on the Red River at Pembina in modern
North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, ...
, a distance of more than . Once again, Gunn worked unsuspected alongside the men. The pretence was maintained until the morning of 29 December 1807, when to general astonishment, Gunn gave birth to a baby boy at the home of
Alexander Henry the younger Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
, the chief of the
North West Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...
's Pembina post. According to Henry's journal: The father of the baby was reportedly John Scarth, an HBC employee who had been in frequent contact with Gunn. After being found out, Gunn became known as Mary Fubbister, and in early 1808 was ordered to return to Albany, and upon her arrival was no longer allowed to work with the men, but rather offered work as a washerwoman. Against her wishes, Gunn and her child were returned to Scotland on the ''Prince of Wales'' on 20 September 1809. There, she lived in poverty, working as a stocking and mitten maker until her death.


Legacy

Isobel Gunn's life has subsequently become the basis for a work of
historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ...
by author Audrey Thomas, a documentary poem entitled ''The Ballad of Isabel Gunn'' by
Stephen Scobie Stephen Scobie (born 31 December 1943) is a Canadian poet, critic, and scholar. Born in Carnoustie, Scotland, Scobie relocated to Canada in 1965. He earned a PhD from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver after which he taught at the U ...
, and the subject of a
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
entitled ''The Orkney Lad: The Story of Isabel Gunn'', directed by filmmaker
Anne Wheeler Anne Wheeler, OC, (born September 23, 1946) is a Canadian film and television writer, producer, and director. Biography Graduating in Mathematics from the University of Alberta she was a computer programmer before traveling abroad. Her years o ...
. Canadian folk singer Eileen McGann also paid tribute with her ballad 'Isabella Gunn'.


See also

*
Marie-Anne Gaboury Marie-Anne Lagimodière (née Gaboury; 15 August 1780 – 14 December 1875) was a French-Canadian woman noted as both the grandmother of Louis Riel, and as the first woman of European descent to travel to and settle in what is now Western Canad ...
, the first woman of European descent to permanently settle in Rupert's Land.


References

*Henry, Alexander: ''The Journal of Alexander Henry The Younger 1799-1814'', Toronto: Champlain Society, 1988 *Van Kirk, Sylvia: ''Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870'', Winnipeg: Watson and Dwyer, 1980 * Scobie, Stephen: ''The Ballad of Isabel Gunn'' Kingston, ON: Quarry, 1987 * Thomas, Audrey: ''Isobel Gunn'',
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anc ...
: Penguin Canada, 2000


External links

*
A biography from the Hudson's Bay Company




at orkneyjar

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunn, Isobel Canadian fur traders 1781 births 1861 deaths People from Orkney Female-to-male cross-dressers Canadian LGBT people Scottish expatriates in Canada 19th-century Scottish businesspeople 19th-century British businesswomen