Author.
Born in Edinburgh on 24 April 1825, the son of Alexander Ballantyne, he came to Rupert’s Land in 1841 as a clerk with the Hudson’s Bay Company, where he spent six years. On his return to Scotland he published his diary and wrote several books for boys, based on his experiences in the West. He wrote Hudson’s Bay, or, Life in the wilds of North America (1848), The Young Fur Traders (1856), Ungava, a Tale of Eskimo Land (1857), The World of Ice (1857), The Coral Island (1858), The Pioneers, a Tale of the Western Wilderness (1872), The Red Man’s Revenge (1884), and The Buffalo Runners (1891). He wrote over 60 books and these are the best known tales of the West.
See also:
Extracts from an Account of a Journey from York Factory to Norway House in 1845 by R. M. Ballantyne
Manitoba Pageant, Volume 14, Number 3, Spring 1969Ballantyne the Brave: A Victorian Writer and His Family by Eric Quayle, 1967.
Robert Michael Ballantyne, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 23 March 2016
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