In the early 1800s, the North West and Hudson's Bay companies recruited men from Iroquois settlements around Montreal, Quebec, and Cornwall, Ontario, to work as canoemen, hunters, and trappers, and their skills gave them an important role in the fur trade in northern Alberta and the Rocky Mountains. Fur trade company records place Pierre Bostonais, an Iroquois nicknamed Tête Jaune, or Yellowhead, on the upper Peace River as early as 1816. His last name suggests that he or his family may have come from the United States, and his nickname suggests he had light-coloured hair, leading some to speculate that he was of mixed European and Iroquois ancestry. In 1825, Pierre and his brother Baptiste helped Hudson's Bay Company employees explore a new route to the interior of British Columbia, and the pass they used came to be called Yellowhead Pass after Pierre. Later that year, records mention Tête Jaune's Cache, where Bostonais stored his furs and supplies. Pierre and Baptiste then spent the next two years among the Carrier Indians of the Fort St. James area before moving northeast to the Finlay River in 1827, where they became involved in a conflict with local Aboriginal people and were killed in September as punishment for hunting on other peoples' lands.