SOURCE: Review of Pemmican, by Vardis Fisher. Kirkus Review 24 (15 April 1956): 286.

In the following review, Pemmican is considered an exciting story, although the reading experience is made unpleasant by Fisher's obsessive focus on sexual and bodily functions.

Not since The Children of God has Vardis Fisher contributed so vital an exploration of a segment of the growth of the American scene as this brutal, violent story of the war between the Hudson's Bay Company and the new North Westers. His central figure [in Pemmican] is David MacDonald, a fictional character whose concern is the welfare of the HBC of which he is a factor, responsible for the securing of the pemmican for the trappers and the traders and for the trade with the Indians at one of the forts. A new interest slashes across his dedicated life. He sees and falls in love with Sunday, a savage white girl...