Women of the Fur Trade offers another perspective on Canadian history, September 24 to October 4

Kicking off Touchstone Theatre’s 50th season, Frances Koncan’s satire gives diverse women a voice

By JOHn LUCAS

(From left) Kelsey Kanatan Wavey, Cheri Maracle, and Lisa Nasson in Women of the Fur Trade. Photo by Fred Cattroll

Touchstone Theatre presents Women of the Fur Trade from September 24 to October 4 at the Frederic Wood Theatre

THE RED RIVER RESISTANCE of 1869-70 is a well-documented piece of Canada’s history, but it’s invariably viewed through a male lens. We’ve heard a lot about the roles played by men like Louis Riel and Thomas Scott, but rarely anything from the perspective of the women who were also around at the time.

Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright Frances Koncan thought a more balanced—and hilarious—look at the events of that era was in order, so she wrote Women of the Fur Trade, a satire centred on the perspectives of a Métis woman, a First Nations woman, and a European settler woman. 

Frances Koncan. Photo by Ady Kay

The story might be an old one, but the dialogue is as fresh as the latest TikTok trend. “When I’m working on a draft, I usually just write how I speak, so every character sounds like me,” Koncan told Stir in a recent interview. “They say things the way I would say them, using the words I would use. And then as I edit it, I kind of start creating that character’s vocabulary and how they talk. But I started really enjoying how the contemporary language and the sarcasm and the jokes were landing in interesting ways.”

Women of the Fur Trade premiered in 2024 at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre and Toronto’s Native Earth Performing Arts, where it garnered a nomination for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play.

In Touchstone Theatre and Western Canada Theatre’s remounting of Koncan’s play, the three women (played this time around by Kelsey Kanatan Wavey, Columpa Bobb, and Cheri Maracle) sip tea and debate revolution, colonization, and, of course, “hot nerd” Riel’s sex appeal.

Kicking off Touchstone’s 50th anniversary season, Women of the Fur Trade is directed by Renae Morriseau and also stars Jonathan Fisher as Riel and Victor Hunter as Scott.

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