He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, and in 1841 he became a clerk
with the Hudson Bay Company, working at the Red River Settlement in
Northen Canada until 1847, arriving back in Edinburgh in 1848. The
letters he had written home were very amusing in their description of
backwoods life, and his family publishing connections suggested that he
should construct a book based on these letters. Three of his most
enduring books were written over the next decade, "The Young Fur
Traders", "Ungava", "The Hudson Bay Company", and were based on his
experiences with the H.B.C. In this period he also wrote "The Coral
island" and "Martin Rattler", both of these taking place in places never
visited by Ballantyne. Having been chided for small mistakes he made in
these books, he resolved always to visit the places he wrote about.
With these books he became known as a great master of literature
intended for teenagers. He researched the Cornish Mines, the London
Fire Brigade, the Postal Service, the Railways, the laying down of
submarine telegraph cables, the construction of light-houses, the
light-ship service, the life-boat service, South Africa, Norway, the
North Sea fishing fleet, ballooning, deep-sea diving, Algiers, and many
more, experiencing the lives of the men and women in these settings by
living with them for weeks and months at a time, and he lived as they
lived.
