While there certainly was a significant amount of conflict between European-Canadians and First Nations peoples, you are correct in noting that there was not the extreme level of violence that marked the westward expansion of settler colonialism in the United States.

The main reason for this arguably has to do with the different British (and later Canadian) philosophy and practice of relations with First Nations. The British developed a policy of first negotiating treaties with First Nations before allowing/encouraging European settlement. This is demonstrated most famously in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

This general principle of negotiating treaties before settlement was generally followed by British colonial authorities from 1763 through the 1800s, as British settlers moved into what are now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and southern Ontario. Of course, individual settlers often had little patience for this process and did not always respect the terms of treaties. There are countless examples of settlers encroaching on land that was designated as "reserve" land (i.e., land reserved for First Nations). Off the top of my head I can point you to this occurring in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) lands in Ontario (I believe this is discussed, among many books, in Alan Taylor's The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution).

There was often a tension between the Crown, in part motivated by a desire not to have the violence of westward expansion in the U.S. repeated north of the border, and land-hungry settlers.

After Confederation in 1867 (when Canada became a unified country with a federal parliament able to pass federal laws), the "Dominion" government, as the federal government was called, generally continued to follow the guidelines of the Royal Proclamation. Over the first few decades of Confederation, treaties were signed with First Nations covering the landmass of most of what is now Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. These treaties are called the Numbered Treaties.

This policy of signing treaties before settlement (even though it was far from seamless in practice) is, I think, the main reason for the disparity in violence between Western Canada and the Western U.S.

There were however, instances of violence between settlers and natives in the Canadian West (which I'll get to shortly), but perhaps more common was violence between natives and the Dominion government.

The big examples are:

• the Red River Resistance of 1869-70, when Metis (descendents of both Europeans and First Nations) in Red River colony (present day Winnipeg), led by Louis Riel, blocked the attempts of a Dominion government delegation to survey the land in preparation for the settlement of settlers from Ontario. Riel and his followers established a provisional government and entered into negotiations with Ottawa about the terms under which Red River would join Confederation. The provisional government imprisoned a small number of men who were attempting to overthrow the provisional government. One of these men, Thomas Scott, was executed while in custody. The provisional government did negotiate quite favourable terms for the inclusion of Red River into Confederation, and the province of Manitoba joined Canada in 1870.

• And the North-West Rebellion of 1885, when Riel traveled to Saskatchewan at the request of the Metis community there, leading a campaign to secure more access to land, assistance in setting up farms, schools, and other provisions from the Dominion government. After peaceful negotiations failed, the Metis formed a provisional government and took up arms against nearby Northwest Mounted Police (NWMP) detachments. The rebels were defeated by a Dominion militia within a couple months. Riel was arrested and was hanged later that year.

• There was also an uprising of young Cree militants in 1885 that is often lumped in with the North-West rebellion but was really quite a separate affair. The Cree militants killed a total of 11 settlers and government agents, including an "Indian agent" and 2 farm instructors. It is important to note that these actions were not part of any coordinated resistance by Cree or other First Nations, but instead were the actions of a small group of young men who had decided on their own to take violent action.

Getting to the specific final part of your question, the best known example of violence between First Nations and fur traders is the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873, when a dispute over stolen horses led to the murder of 22 Assiniboine by American wolf hunters and fur and hide traders.

There are lots of smaller examples of violence between natives and fur traders, but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule in the fur trade.

Here are some sources that document violence in the fur trade:

Carolyn Podruchny's Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade, specific examples on pp. 231-234. From the early 1800s.

Richard White's The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, covers fur trade relations, particularly in the French colonial period (1600s and 1700s).

Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-trade Society in Western Canada, 1670-1870.

For a more recent (and more Northern) example of violence in the fur trade, see Shelagh Grant's Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923, which explores the trial of Inuit men who, in keeping with Inuit legal practice, killed a violent fur trader who was threatening to murder members of the community.

For more details on the previously mentioned conflicts, see the Canadian history textbook, Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel, History of the Canadian Peoples: 1867 to the Present, or Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History.

Primary sources:

This website seems to have quite a few documents.

Scroll down to section #5 on this page for more primary sources.

You could also look at some of the above books and check out what primary sources they are using. Van Kirk in particular I believe makes use of a number of fur traders' memoirs, which you may find interesting.

Hope this is helpful. Best of luck!