Lynx

From the 1600s to the 1870s, the fur trade was the main economic driver for European exploration and colonization of Canada and ultimately Canada’s nationhood. Trade companies relied heavily on trade with Indigenous trappers (predominantly supplying beaver pelts, but also lynx, mink, and other furs). The fur trade pushed economic and cultural relationships between Europeans and Indigenous people, but not without indelible impacts.

In Lynx, each player takes the role of a late 18th century fur trapper in the Hudson’s Bay region of northern Ontario, exploiting the lynx-hare cycle and outwitting other trappers. Each player has been supplied traps by the Hudson’s Bay Company with the agreement that all pelts be sold exclusively to them. By trapping when the lynx are plentiful and selling pelts at high prices, the trapper who earns the most money pays off their debt and becomes a free trapper.

There are two modes of play:

Snowshoe: the beginner mode, where you plan your action for the season at the beginning of the current season.

Wildcat: the advanced mode, where you not only plan the current season but also the next season’s action (you’ll have two sets of action cards).