R. M. Ballantyne 
Snowflakes and Sunbeams or the Young Fur Traders A Tale of the Far North 

This is the story of the hard life of a trapper in Canada in the early 1800s. Charlie Kennedy lives in the Canadian arctic colony known as the Red River Settlement with Indians, Scotsmen, and French-Canadian settlers. His father, an old fur trader, hopes to convince his son to become a clerk by recounting the dangers of the trapper’s life, but the stories only inspire the boy more to explore the vast Canadian wilderness. (Goodreads)