DARK FURS.
It is not perhaps generally known that the surroundings of most
animals have a primary effect on the color of their hair. Beaver,
otter, mink and musquash are dark or light colored according to the
water they live in. Clear, cold water lakes produce skins of a deep
glossy black, muddy lakes on the other hand, furnishing light colored
fur.
Having studied this in my own hunting and trapping, I have often
surprised an Indian when trading his skins by saying: "You trapped
this and this skin in a clear water lake," and he has admitted it as
true. Another peculiar fact in relation to deep, cold water lakes is
that, while the skins they produce are of the finest quality, they
are also much smaller in size than those trapped in brown or muddy
water, and this applies to all the animals I have mentioned.
Musquash killed in clear water lakes are about two-thirds the size of
those trapped in grassy, sluggish rivers, and it is the same with
mink. This rule holds good also with land animals, such as marten,
those living in and resorting to black spruce swamps being invariably
dark colored, whereas those in mixed pine, birch and balsam hills are
larger and lighter in color.
For seven years I trapped on a chain of lakes, five in number. One of
these lay off at one side, not over a quarter of a mile from the
other four; it was of considerable extent, possibly a mile and a half
long by a quarter wide. This lake was very clear and deep, and used
to freeze over two weeks later than the others, and open that much
earlier in the spring.
On the borders of this lake, which was known as "Clear Water Lake,"
were two beaver lodges, which I preserved with the greatest care,
only trapping a few out of each lodge every fall, thus keeping up the
supply, and finer and more beautiful skins I never handled. This
valley being within a few miles of the post, I got the Indian who
owned the lands to make over his rights for a consideration, and I
kept these lakes as a home farm or preserve as long as I remained in
that district.
It was in the upper one of these lakes that I trapped the most
extraordinary beaver of my experience, he having only one hind foot,
the other feet having been gnawed or twisted off in traps. The Indian
owner of the lands, when selling his good will, told me of this
desperate and cunning old animal and I passed many a long, solitary
evening in my canoe to get a shot when the knowing old card broke
water.
I kept two or three traps well set, with a very remote possibility of
his putting his only remaining foot therein. Beaver medicine and
castorum would not allure him, and the thought occurred to me to try
anise seed oil, which I did, and on my next visit had the
satisfaction of pulling him up drowned at the end of the chain. The
wounds of the cut off legs were so thoroughly healed that when I
skinned him there was not even a pucker of the skin in the places
where the legs should have been. It is a marvel how he managed to
navigate the waters of his native pond, but as the boy said, "I don't
know how he did it, but he did."
Another freak that I caught in those same lakes was the only albino
beaver that I ever saw. She had a creamy white fur, with pink eyes,
pink toe nails and pink scales on her tail. This may not have been
phenomenal, but it was a rare skin for all that. At a conservative
estimate I must have handled a couple hundred thousand beaver skins
in my life, but this is the only instance that I ever saw a white
one.
The Clear Water Lake, not to be behind in oddities, produced a dwarf
beaver. I caught him late in the fall in a trap set for musquash, the
other lakes being frozen over. He was about the size of an ordinary
full grown rat, but was fully developed and must have been two years
old. At first I thought he might be of a second litter, but I thought
this was very improbable, if not quite outside of nature, so I
carefully examined the teeth and organs, and found to intents and
purposes he was a full grown beaver.
Writing of full grown beaver puts me in mind of those early trapping
days, and the logic of a certain Indian. Then we used to pay so much
a skin for beaver, and graded the skins as big, middling and small.
In culling this man's skins I threw one into the pile of middling
ones and he immediately said: "That's a big one," and I said it was
not and compared it with several of the large ones. He, however,
stoutly maintained it was a big one and said, "Look at the white men,
there are big ones and small ones, but they are men the same." I
stood corrected and placed the disputed skin with his better grown
and developed relatives, the Indian gave an almost audible smile, and
things went on amicably.
On the watershed between the valley of the St. Lawrence and Hudson's
Bay, marten are prime on the first of October. Beaver, otter and mink
are prime on the 25th of October and fox and lynx the 15th of
November. I have often seen the question asked in the H-T-T as to the
time the several kinds of fur are prime in different localities, and
the above dates can be depended upon for the latitude mentioned.
It pays the trapper to have his trap-houses made and his traps hung
up ready to set and bait immediately when the skins are prime. They
are easily cleaned and command a much higher average, whereas if the
majority of skins in a man's pack are unprimed or staged, it takes
away from the value of the few really few good ones.
The buyer, to get these few merchantable skins, has to put some kind
of value on the culls to make a buy, but in reality the trader is
only paying for the few good ones and the trapper loses the other
skins. And who is to blame? Trappers have been told time and again
that trapping too early in the season is against their best
interests; nevertheless they go blindly on, killing the poor beasts
that have little or no value, and then they marvel at the scarcity of
the fur-bearing animals and the little return they have to show for a
couple of months' hard work.
No. If there is any line that wants protection and a cast iron union
between the men connected with the industry, it is the fur trade. All
are, or ought to be, interested in the keeping up of the supply and
quality, the trapper, wholesale man and manufacturer alike. Let the
last two unite and not buy unprime skins, and the former for want of
a market would very soon hunt in season only.
* * *
In this northern country fur-bearing animals continue prime much
longer than elsewhere. The trappers and hunters (Indians) only come
down from the interior from the tenth of June, and all the way down
to the end of the month. Thus the month of June is the fur buying
month.
Prior to the Paris Exposition a fair and legitimate trade was
possible, the Indians got a fair and reasonable price for their
skins, and as a rule were reasonably honest. But that year marked the
demoralization of the fur trade on this coast. Opposition became keen
and fur buyers from Quebec, Boston, New York and Paris, came to the
different places of resort of the Indians, bidding up raw furs to
prices out of all reason. The consequence of which were, and are,
that the Indian did not pay his furnisher, but kept up his finest
furs to sell to these parties for high cash prices.
Other traders followed the fur buyers, and sold the Indians useless
trashy articles. The result is the Indians have to leave for the bush
ill supplied with warm clothings, provisions, etc.--what he actually
requires. A large portion of his hunt has been sold for abnormal
prices, but the proceeds has done him no perceptible good. On the
contrary, his lot is much worse than it was before. Seeing his
advances have not been paid, the resident trader will not supply
these men again.
I take about the Post of Seven Islands as perhaps being the place
where the highest prices have been paid for three years, 1899, 1900
and 1901, and give the readers of Hunter-Trader-Trapper the figures.
They are as follows:
Bears, large, black from $15.00 to $25.00
Bears, small, black, from 6.00 to 12.00
Beaver per lb. 3.50 to 4.50
Fisher, from 6.00 to 10.00
Fox, red, from 3.50 to 5.50
Fox, cross, from 4.00 to 25.00
Fox, silver, from 100.00 to 335.00
Lynx, from 4.00 to 7.00
Marten, from 10.00 to 20.00
Minks, from 2.50 to 4.00
Otters, land, from 15.00 to 22.00
Wolverine, from 4.00 to 6.00
These are the principal furs we have on the Coast and will show what
absurd prices were paid. We know that furs realized good prices at
the last London sales, and some few, very few, bought were no doubt
well worth these high prices.
The part where the most harm was done the trade was the anxiety of
some of these buyers to get the furs at almost any price. Almost any
kind of a marten would be paid $10 for. Such martens that the writer
of this article has bought a few years ago for $1.25, a very choice
marten, large, dark and well furred, one we will say out of two or
three hundred, such a one as we ordinarily paid $7 for, has brought
$18 to $20. Martens and otters especially, they seem to have gone
perfectly crazy to get.
Two years ago a man, further down the Coast paid $720 for what I was
told was a very ordinary Silver Fox. He went to Paris during the
Exposition with the fox to sell. I never heard if he got his money
back. Had he paid $150, he would have got the fox just the same for
this was the price being paid along the Coast during that year.
The rivers are the highways of the Indians and the mouths of most of
the big ones are the summer camping grounds. At these places are
trading posts where they barter and sell their winter's catch, get
new supplies for another year, and load their canoes again in
September for another nine or ten months in the Far North Wilds.
When the reaction comes, as it must come, it will be pretty hard to
convince the Indians that their martens are only worth $5 or $6. The
bottom is bound to fall out, and many of these men, who are paying
the present prices, must go to the wall. With unlimited money, any
fool can buy skins. But it requires a judge and careful man to buy
with discretion.