Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-01-31

a constant stream of treasure for nearly two
and half centuries. Last year according to
Canadian export figures, this treasure amount
ed to $2,719,S22, but no credit was given LOT
the enormous home consumption OF raw peIIs'
The actual catch was worth at least S5,5oo'-
O0O The coming season will see $TOOO'OVo
worth of fus caught in Canada, in spite Oh
the fact that the actual number Of skins VIII
be at least a quarter less than year ago.
when the lives of between thirty and forty
million wild things were taken that Mllauy
of civilization might have her furs.
AS recently as eight years ago, when the
writer first began his journeys into the norIh-
land one struck the great fur country as soon
as he crossed Lake Superior From there II
ranged to the Arctic sea. Less than oecaoe
has brought about tremendous cnange' ana
now one travels hundred miles farther north
before he enters the last great trapping
ground" From this great trapping ground
comes seventy per cent. of the better class
Of furs worn by the American woman and her
Canadian sister.
In vast desolation one-thiTd as large as
the whole of Europe there is no railroad, no
white mans village, and its population is less
than that of the Sahara Desert. In lts cen
ter is Hudsons Bay, the great ice Dox OF
the north-nine times as large as the state OF
Ohio Over this vast territory at distances
of from one to three hundred miles apart are
scattered the Hudson's Bay Companys posts
and those of it's French competitors, the Ike
veillon Brothers In most instances post
consists of nothing more than company
store" the factors house, and two or three
log cabins Except during tie months of the
trapping season these are Practically the only
noints of human life in country that runs
two thousand miles east and west and from
two to eight hundred north and south.
With the first breath of winter the fur-gath-
erers begin to bury themselves in the vast
desolation about them, travelling one and
sometimes two hundred miles away from the
post to their old trapping grounds.
From the moment he leaves his door to go
over his line, three days supply Of food and
a thick blanket in his pack-saek, knife
belt-ax and rife as weapons, every hour is
filed with excitement for the hunter OF fur.
On his snowshoes he speeds swiftly from trap
to trap, every mile of snowy forests ana
swarps revealing the mysteries OF the WIG
things to him as plainly as a pioture-book
In one trap he finds a great white owl, and
cuts off the beautiful wings for the wife and
children back in the cabin. In the next there
is a huge snow-shoe rabbit, frozen stiff as 1t
had died. And then, from through the thick
and gloomy balsam ahead, he hears the faint
clinbing of chain His blood leaps now, for
old to the fur-hunter The chain clinks loud
err. and he draws in quick excited breaths as
he lifts the hammer Of his rife and stares
ahead He comes suddenly upon the next
house and there is a snarling, leapiLg TING
in the air before him, a great silEer-gray
furred thing 1.-THE and beautiful az 1t crouches
at bay-a lynx. And a magnificent specimen,
its sixinch fur as fine as a woman's hair,
crumpled and lying richly upon the blood
~ - -vVn
within springing distance. But the hunter
knows better He aims carefully for spot
where he can sew up the bullet-hole, and fires.
Only short time from now some gently nur-
tured beauty of civilization will press the
warmth and regal loneliness of that thing 20
her face, and-is it possible that vision OF
this wilderness tragedy will come to her then?
No more than the darkfaced hunter sees
vision of that womans loneliness as he skins
his catch and hurries on To each is given
but part of the picture
The forest man knows only that he has
caught a Number One Extra" lynx, and that
the Company vii pay him fifteen dollars for
it. His mental visions go no farther than
that He makes no effort to follow it in the
great ship that will carry it to Paris or Lon
don, where It will be sold at great profit;
nor to the furrier's shop, nor to the dainty
girl or the society matron in New York who
will pay $3.50 for that same ffteen-dollar lynx
lin an Imported" muf. He goes on, keyed
to higher excitement, until the end Of the day.
comes. and in the first gray gloom of early
night he stops at one of the three or four
small log shelters which he has built for him
self along the trapline, gets his supper, lights
his pipe, and reviews the happenings of the
day until slunber closes his eyes.
It will take him three days to cover forty
mile trap-line and when he returns to his
cabin at the close of the third he is welcomed
by the glad cries of his children and the
laughter and Joy of his wife, who has ten
der roast porcupine or g venison stew waiting
for him For two days after that he rests
smokes his pipe, and tells of his adventures
while his wife scrapes the fat from his pelts
and stretches them sticks. Then, once
more, he shoulders his pack, and goes again
upon his round of excitement. adventure ant
profit. q