Alexander Hunter Murray

According to the Government of Manitoba, via the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives of Winnipeg, Alexander Hunter Murray was in the employ of the American Fur Company prior to 1845, when he was hired by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The last of his employment information on the document states “1864-1865     allowed furlough.”^[2] This document also lays out his myriad of jobs under the Hudson’s Bay Company.

In 1847, he established the trading post at Fort Yukon at the juncture of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers in the land of the Gwichʼin people. Originally part of Russian Alaska, the Hudson's Bay Company continued to trade there until expelled by the US government in 1869 following the Alaska Purchase.

He drew numerous sketches of fur trade posts and of people and wrote Journal of the Yukon, 1847–48, which give valuable insight into the culture of local First Nation people at the time.

On 4 April 1975 Canada Post issued 'Dance of the Kutcha-Kutchin' in the Indians of Canada, Indians of the Subarctic series. The stamp was designed by Georges Beaupré based on a drawing by Alexander Hunter Murray (1851) in Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The 8¢ stamps are perforated 13.5 and were printed by Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited.^[3]

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online