The book is a biography of eccentric French fur trader Pierre Radisson, a man who helped shape the events of his time. Radisson spent his life trying to be an important part of the rather bizarre European beaver hat trade, but was stymied all his life. He lived through fantastic adventures: capture and adoption by the Mohawks in 1652, escape to early New York City, trading partner with the indigenous people of the Great Lakes, defecting from the French and witnessing the Great Plague and Great Fire of London, defecting back to the French, co-founding the Hudson's Bay Company, running with pirates... and so on. A fascinating and remarkable life story that is finally being told.