Currently the BBC is airing an interesting programme by a noted survival expert, Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness.

Among other things, he highlights the extreme conditions faced by early explorers of Canada's remoter parts and frozen north over 200 years ago.

In the north aisle of Halifax Minster is a tombstone with the name William Frobisher engraved upon it. He lived from 1710 to 1763.

I wonder how many Calderdale people are aware of the three sons of this Mr Frobisher, Benjamin, Thomas and Joseph – all baptised here – who emigrated to Montréal, soon after Québec was captured by the British from the French in 1760.

In the 1770s the brothers extensively explored the little-known wildernesses of mid and northern Canada on gruelling fur-trading expeditions. One of them even reached the remote Athabasca region.

In the winter of 1783-4, the Frobisher brothers' business company was merged with that of Simon McTavish, thus establishing the great Montréal-based North-West Company, which was to vie with the better known London-based Hudson's Bay Company for control of the fur trade, contesting the latter's monopoly. But in Montreal, the Frobishers had already made a fortune.

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent lived 1791-3 in Québec, and when he visited Montreal, he stayed with Joseph Frobisher, who lived in "great style" at Beaver Hall. This prince was later to become the father of Queen Victoria.

Joseph Frobisher – baptised at Halifax on April 18, 1748 – died at Montréal on September 12, 1810; and he is regarded as one of the founders of the commercial metropolis of Canada.

Fifteen years after the Frobishers' greatest journey, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the greatest explorer of the Canadian north west – who has been mentioned by Ray Mears – travelled over the same ground as them, and went much further. We know he was inspired by the Frobisher brothers' exploits, for in a book he had published in 1810, he mentioned their great pluck and endurance.

In 1821, the North West Company was to amalgamate with the Hudson's Bay Company under the latter company's name, creating a fur-trading monopoly that covered a quarter of North America.

Autumn marks the 250th anniversary of the capture of Québec by General James Wolfe, which exciting event was extensively reported in Halifax's newspaper the Union Journal.

Incidentally, Wolfe was a cousin – via the Thompson family – of the Rev Henry Wood, who was vicar of Halifax 1775-90.

David C Glover