The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-24
CANADA'S FUR TRADE
a ONCE GREAT INDUSTRY HAS
DECREASED IN EXTENT.
Changes in Fashion and Extermina-
ton of some Fur-Bearing Animals
Has Affected the business.

In the early days of Canada, as in the
early days of New England, bearer and
moose skins were used as barter cur.
rency. together with wheat and musket
balls. In the old papers recently print
ed by the government of this province
there is letter from Montreal asking
that certain merchants be allowed to
pay debts they owed to English traders
in deer skins, because If the deprecated
card money issued by the French au-
thorities were sent it would be subject
ed to a ruinous shave, although, the
writer naively adds. 1.-The Bostonese
themselves know all about deprecated
money" In 1877 the catch of furs in
New France realized $4,000 francs; for
some years before and after the British
conquest it seems to have averaged g.
100000 francs a year, exclusive. Of
course, of the furs retained for use by
the traders. When the traffic was
'farmed' by Oudiette and others, the
standard price for beaver skins at the
posts was francs 10 sous per pound.
payable in commodities. Brandy and
vermillion were in great demand by the
Indians, and the Western bands had a
liking for pepper. A trader usually be-
gan operations by distributing brandy
gratis; when the savage clamored for
more he exchanged it for their furs at
his own price. In 1854, when. owing to
the depreciation of the card money,
goods were at fabulous prices, the In
dams were fleeced right and left by
having to pay in skins the currency
value of what they got in barter. 1t is
10 tod TOnxy
officials played even a smarter trick.
They persuaded the Indians that long
barreled gun would carry further than
short-barreled one. They then i'm
ported cheap guns with very long bar
rels and sold them at an enormous
profit, the value of gun being deter
mined by standing it on the butt and
making the Indian pile beaver skins on
the ground till they were on level with
the muzzle. 90
According to the British trade returns
between 1893 and 1901 the shipments to
England from Quebec of beaver skins
averaged nearly 100000 per annum. of
marten and otter $4,000, fox and bear
10000, raccoons $4,000. muskrats $1,000,
deer 10000. These skins were the catch
throughout the region between the Gulf
of St. Lawrence and Lake Superior;
there were separate returns for the i'm
mense expectation from Labrador the
Hudson bay country and the Red River
the Hudson Bay Company as late as
1866 for the territory between Fort Gar
ry (Winnipeg) and the uttermost north
included $4,000 beaver, $4,000 buffalo, H.
900 fox, $4,000 marten and lynx, 10000
mink, 100000 muskrat and 5000 otter.
Those halcyon times are past, and furs
are getting scarce in all parts of Cana
da except perhaps on the Peace and
Mackenzie rivers and round about York
Factory. But the modern furrier is
skins. formerly of little value. are now
doctored and palmed off on the unwary
as seal, and wolverine of certain class
transmogrified into valuable ermine.
The German furrierS are adopts at this
business. The otter and silver fox are
not SO easy to initiate, and have greatly
advanced in price. A perfect silver fox
fetches as high as 5000 and $780, Those
from Labrador and Newfoundland are
worth SIS or $1G0 on the spot
LAST OF THE BUFFALO.
The last of the buffalo disappeared
from the plains in the Canadian North
west about $780, A domesticated herd
was kept near Winnipeg for some time
after. and animals from it were sent to
the Queen. When the Canadian Pacific
railway was built a considera BILE trade
was done in exporting buffalo bones,
which lay thick around the small alkali
lakes. The surface of the prairie was
marked by innumerable runs" made by
the herds as they marched north in
search of Succulent grasses, to the fail
ure of which their extinction is attrib-
uted by the half-breeds. Government
explorers have penetrated every part of
the country, and report that not a sin
gle buffalo remains, although in 1870
there were 5000. 900 or $1,000, 900 of them.
Reckless slaughtering, particularly in
"a no Gao I'm r, aJ,;>
of their vanishing. Down to 1S49 the
Hudson Bay Company regulated the
trade in buffalo skins and other furs
with high hand The half-breeds
went out in hunting parties twice a
year, from June 25 to Aug. Is and from
Sept 20 to Nov. 1, and both they and
the Indians were prohibited from selling
their catch to strangers, stranger be-
ing nobody not in the company's serv-
ice. If they broke this rule, which they
often did, by selling to American trad
ers the company refused to supply
them with clothing, and would not pur-
chase their surplus pemmican and dried
meat. The company managed the post
obliged to leave their letters unsealed
so that the officials might keep an eve
on their business. This system, broken
down by an appeal to force by Louis
Riel, father of the Louis Riel hanged in
1885 for being concerned in rebellion
is said to have helped to preserve the
buffalo, but If it did it was rather hard
on the half-breeds, whose cry for a long
time was free trade" The largest
number of buffalo skins ever sold by
the company in one year was 10000 in
184S. 1t still has an annual sale of furs
in London. But in the southern division
of the territory, from the international
boundary to the Saskatchewan, the fur
trade is rapidly dying out and the posts
are being transformed into general
stores for the white settler.
INDIAN THAPPERS.
A great many of the smaller fur-bear-
ing animals are trapped in the foothills
of the Rocky mountains. AS an illustra-
ton of the microscopic powers of OBJ
servation possessed by the Indian, and
perhaps also of the minuteness and ac-
curacy of description which his aggluti-
native language allows, one of them
will tell where he has set his traps amid
the rocks and underbrush, bluffs and
canyons, covering space four or five
miles in area, and another is able solely
from the narrative to go and visit them
all. just as if he had set them himself.