AT FORT NORMAN
No trading post in all the North is more beautifully situated than Fort
Norman. The snug buildings of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northern
Trading Company are located upon a high bank, at the foot of which the
mighty Mackenzie rushes northward to the frozen sea. On a clear day the
Rocky Mountains are plainly visible, and a half mile below the post,
Bear River, the swift running outlet to Great Bear Lake, flows into the
Mackenzie. It is to Fort Norman that the Indians from up and down the
great river, from the mountains to the westward, and from Great Bear
Lake, and a thousand other lakes and rivers, named and unnamed, to the
eastward, come each year to trade their furs. And it was there that
Connie Morgan and 'Merican Joe arrived just thirty-seven days after they
pulled out of Dawson.
Except at the time of the holiday trading, winter visitors are few at
the isolated post, and the two were heartily welcomed by the agents of
the rival trading companies, and by the two priests of the little Roman
Catholic Mission.
Connie learned from the representatives of both companies that from all
indications fur would be plentiful that year, but both expressed doubt
that Fort Norman would get its share of the trading.
"It's this way," explained McTavish, a huge, bearded Scot, as they sat
about the fur trader's roaring stove upon the evening of their arrival.
"The mountain Indians--the moose eaters, from the westward--are trading
on the Yukon. They claim they get better prices over there an' maybe
they do. The Yukon traders get the goods into the country cheaper, an'
they could sell them cheaper, an' I ain't blamin' the Indians for
tradin' where they can do best. But, now comes reports of a free trader
that has trailed up the Coppermine from the coast to trade amongst the
caribou eaters to the eastward. If that's so--an' he gets 'em to trade
with him--God help those Indians along towards spring."
The man relapsed into silence and Connie grinned to himself. "They've
had it all their way up here for so long it makes them mad if anybody
else comes in for a share of their profits," thought the boy. Aloud, he
asked innocently:
"What's the matter with the free traders?"
McTavish frowned, and Berl Hansen, the Dane who managed the affairs of
the Northern Trading Company's post, laughed harshly.
"Go down along the railroads, boy," he said, "if you want to see the
handiwork of the free traders, an' look at the Indians that has dealt
with 'em. You can see 'em hanging around them railroad towns, that was
once posts where they handled good clean furs. Them Injuns an' their
fathers before 'em was good trappers--an' look at 'em now!"
"Yes," interrupted Connie, "but they are the victims of the bootleggers
and the whiskey runners! How about the free trader that won't handle
liquor?"
"There ain't no such a free trader!" exclaimed Hansen, angrily. "They're
a pack of lying, thievin'----"
"There, there, Berl, lad!" rumbled McTavish, checking the irate Dane,
who had fairly launched upon his favourite theme. "Ye're right, in the
main--but the lad's question was a fair one an' deserves a fair answer.
I'm an older man, an' I've be'n thirty years in the service of the
Company. Let me talk a bit, for there are a few traders that for aught I
know are honest men an' no rum peddlers. But, there's reasons why they
don't last long." The old Scotchman paused, whittled deliberately at his
plug tobacco, and filled his pipe. "It's this way," he began. "We'll
suppose this trader over on the Coppermine is a legitimate trader. We
will handle his case fairly, an' to do that we must consider first the
Hudson's Bay Company. For two hundred an' fifty years we have been
traders of the North--we know the needs of the North--an' we supply
them. The Indian's interests are our interests, and we trade nothing but
the best goods. For two centuries an' a half we have studied the North
and we have dealt fairly. And may I say here," with a glance toward
Hansen, "that there are several other companies with sound financial
backing and established posts that have profited by our experience and
also supply only the best of goods, and deal fairly. With them we have
no quarrel--honest competition, of course, we have--but no quarrel.
Comes now the free trader. He is a man of small capital. His goods are
cheap, they are of inferior quality. He cannot give 'debt,' as the
credit of the North is called. He cannot carry a large number of Indians
for six months or a year as we do. If he attempts it, his creditors
press him and he goes to the wall--or the Indians find out before time
for payment comes that the goods are inferior, and they repudiate their
debt. It is bad all around--bad for the Indians, bad for the free
traders, and bad for us----"
"I should think it would be good for you," interrupted Connie.
The factor shook his head: "I told you the Indians' interests are our
interests. I will show you. Take it at this very post. We will suppose
that the beaver are becoming scarce around here; what do we do? We say
to the Indians, 'Do not kill any beaver this year and next year.' And
they obey us--why? Because we will not buy any beaver here during that
time. They will not kill what they cannot sell. Then, when the beavers
have become numerous again, we resume trade in them. Were it not for
this policy, many fur-bearing animals that once were numerous would now
be extinct.
"But--suppose there are free traders in the country--we will pay nothing
for beavers, so they begin to buy them cheap--they can name their own
price, and the Indians will keep on killing them. The Indian says: 'It
is better that I should sell this beaver now at six skins than that my
neighbour should sell him in two years at twelve skins.' Then, soon,
there are no more beavers left in that part of the country. Another
thing, in the fur posts our word is law. We tell the Indians when they
can begin to take fur, and when they must stop. The result is we handle
only clean, prime pelts with the flesh side white as paper. With the
free trader a pelt is a pelt, prime or unprime, it makes no difference.
So the killing goes merrily on where the free traders are--and soon all
the fur-bearing animals are exterminated from that section. What does
the free trader care? He loads his fly-by-night outfit into canoes or a
York boat, and passes on to lay waste another section, leaving the poor
Indians to face the rigours of the coming winter with ruined credit,
cheap, inadequate clothing, cheap food, and worthless trinkets, and
their hunting grounds barren of game."
"But," objected Connie, "suppose a free trader dealt in goods as good as
yours----"
McTavish laughed. "I have yet to see that trader in thirty years'
experience. Admit that his goods did measure up to our standard. What
would he have to charge for them? We buy in vast quantities--in some
cases we take the entire output of factories, and we have an established
system of transportation to get it into the wilds. No free trader can
compete with us--cost plus freight would ruin him, especially as he must
allow the Indians a debt."
"How much debt do they get?"
"That depends upon several things. First of all upon the Indian--his
reputation for honesty, and his reputation as a hunter. It also depends
upon the size of his family, the distance of his hunting ground from the
post, and his general prospects for the season. It varies from one
hundred to five or six hundred, and in exceptional cases even to a
thousand skins."
"What do you mean by a skin?"
"A skin," explained McTavish, "is our unit of trade. Instead of saying
a certain thing is worth so many dollars, we say it is worth so many
'skins' or 'made beaver.'. At this post the value of the made beaver is
a half-dollar." The factor opened a drawer and drew forth a handful of
brass tokens which he handed to Connie for inspection. "These are skins,
or made beaver. We offer an Indian so many skins for his pack of furs.
He has little idea of what we mean when we tell him he has five hundred
skins' worth of fur, so we count out five hundred of these made
beaver--he can see them, can feel them--the value of his catch is
immediately reduced to something concrete--something he can
understand--then we take away the amount of his debt, and if there are
still some made beaver remaining, he knows he has something left over to
spend for finery and frippery. Rarely does he use these extra skins for
the purchase of food or necessary clothing--he contracts a new debt for
that. But, wait till spring when the Indians come in, and you will
witness the trading for yourself. It is then you will see why it is that
the free trader has small chance of doing business at a profit north of
sixty."
"But, why wouldn't it be just as easy to figure it in dollars?" asked
the boy.
McTavish laughed. "There were several reasons, although, with the
government paying treaty in cash nowadays, the Indians are beginning to
know something of money. But the main reason is that when the made
beaver was first invented, no one seems to know just when or where or by
whom, there was no money in the country--everything was traded or
bartered for some other thing. And because the skin, and particularly
the beaver skin, was the thing most bartered by Indians, the unit of
value came to be known as a 'skin' or 'made beaver.' Another reason why
money has never been popular with us is because of its destructibility.
Take this post, for instance. Suppose we were compelled to ship silver
dollars back and forth between here and Edmonton? Ten thousand of them
would weigh close to six hundred pounds! Six hundred pounds would mean,
on scows, six pieces--and mighty valuable pieces too, to be loaded and
unloaded a dozen times, carried over portages, shot through dangerous
rapids, carried up and down slippery river banks and across slippery
planks to the scows. Suppose one of these pieces were dropped overboard
by one of the none too careful half-breed rivermen? The Company would
lose just so many dollars. Or, suppose the riverman very conveniently
dropped the piece into the water where he could recover it again? A
dollar is a dollar--it can be spent anywhere. But suppose that the piece
contained only a supply of these brass 'made beaver'--the whole ten
thousand would only make one piece--and if it dropped into the river the
Company would lose only so much brass. Then if the riverman afterward
recovered it, instead of finding himself possessed of dollars which he
could spend anywhere, he would only have a hundred pounds or so of brass
tokens whose value had been cancelled. And, again, the expense of
transportation, even granted the consignment arrived safely at its
destination, would be against the dollar. One hundred pounds, where
freight costs sixteen cents a pound to move, is much cheaper to move
than six hundred pounds."
"Yes," agreed Connie, "but how about using paper money?"
"Worse, and more of it!" exclaimed McTavish. "In the first place the
piece, or package, would be lighter and of greater value--therefore
much easier to make away with. Some lone bandit, or gang of bandits,
might find it well worth their while to hold up the scow brigade and
make off with that little piece. And, besides, until very recently, the
Indians have had no sense of the value of paper money. An Indian cannot
see why one piece of paper should be worth five dollars, and another
exactly like it in size and colour should be worth ten, or twenty, or
fifty--and another piece of paper be worth nothing at all. I am sure no
one at the posts would welcome the carrying on of business upon a cash
basis--I know I should not. The Canadian North is the cleanest land in
the world, in so far as robbery is concerned, thanks to the Mounted. But
with its vast wilderness for hiding places and its lack of quick
transportation and facility for spreading news, I am afraid it would not
long remain so, if it became known that every trading post possessed its
cash vault. As it is, the goods of the North, in a great measure,
protect themselves from theft by their very bulk. A man could hardly
expect to get out of this country, for instance, with even a very few
packs of stolen fur. The Mounted would have him before he could get
half way to the railroad."
"It seems funny," grinned Connie, "to find an outfit that doesn't like
to do business for cash!"
"Funny enough, till you know the reason--then, the most natural thing in
the world. And, there is yet one more reason--take the treaty money. The
Indians bring the treaty money to us and buy goods with it. We make the
profit on the goods--but if they had bought those same goods for fur--we
would have made the profit on the fur, also--and primarily, we are a fur
company--although every year we are becoming more and more of a trading
company and a land company. I am glad I shall not live to see the last
of the fur trade--I love the fur--it speaks a language I know."
A short time later the company broke up, Berl Hansen returned to his own
quarters, and Connie and 'Merican Joe were given the spare room in the
factor's house where for the first time since leaving Dawson they slept
under a roof.