I am a new subscriber to the group. As a Ph.D candidate at the University of Alberta whose interest in alcohol was aroused by my reading of primary fur trade sources, I find myself pursuing a complex subject while operating in a world of my own making since very few individuals here seem to understand the intricate vein I'm determined to mine. This posting is a direct result of Melissa Raven's plea for information and the subsequent responses to her query. But, it is prompted by the suggestion of a member of my committee, Dr. Patricia Prestwich, who brought the correspondence to my attention and who insisted that I should contribute my piece to the discussion. For whatever it is worth, here is a synopsis of what I'm doing. Hopefully it will not prompt too many disagreements but, more particularly, I will welcome any suggestions on anything that may help me to make my work relevant and lasting. My dissertation seeks to uncover details of when, where, how, and why West Indian rum became important to European traders who made their living in the Canadian Fur Trade. Tentatively entitled _West Indian Rum in the Canadian Fur Trade: 1670-1850_, the subject will be divided into two parts -- the formative pre-1760s when West Indian rum was not important to the trade in furs and the expansive post-Conquest period when it became integral to that trade. During the pre-Conquest period, three colonial mercantilist trading traditions are distinguishable -- the French (New France), the Dutch (New Amsterdam) and the British (Hudson's Bay Company). A considerable body of pre-Conquest and American literature delineates the social norms under which traders from these three traditions provided alcohol to Canadian native peoples but, historians have not integrated this vast body of literature. The primary purpose of the dissertation, therefore, is to attempt a synthesis which will clearly distinguish between the different types of alcohol traded under these three colonial trading systems. This synthesis will explore a much broader path than that available in current Canadian fur trade literature; instead of limiting the discussion to the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company experiences, it will anchor the discussion in the larger colonial social context. I will argue that, during the post-Conquest period, the New France and Hudson's Bay traditions were quickly replaced by Dutch mercantilism, as implemented by the founders of the Northwest Company and the American Fur Trade Company. These two companies were shaped by New World, not European, economic realities; the multicultural Middle colonists who formed and built them were conditioned by that two hundred year old trading culture which was first implemented by Dutch traders throughout the New World colonies. The primary ingredient of that frontier as it had expanded westward from the Caribbean was unrestricted freedom of trade in a variety of "products" such as salt, fish, furs, slaves, and timber. The 1759/60 Conquest of New France gave these New World traders an ideal opportunity to extend their trading culture northward and westward. After the Conquest, while Britain and France battled to settle the monopoly over West Indian sugar, these traders persisted in their variegated interests and managed to pull together members of the English West India Faction, their island dependents, and French West Indian planters in a new enterprise. As war continued between the two imperial giants, this disparate group claimed the market for West Indian molasses, a by-product of sugar production and a necessary ingredient for producing rum. Throughout the Middle and New England colonies, enterprising traders soon became industrial leaders, by launching an industry for producing greater quantities of rum. The product would soon bring social havoc to their societies but it would also become the foremost staple of exchange for Indian furs. By the 1780s, based on easy access to West Indian rum, New World traders were able to pursue the fur trade far more aggressively than previously. Thereafter, they would influence native communities to an extent not experienced during the pre-Conquest period. Anatol Scott Department of History and Classics University of Alberta.