The unique brotherhood of men to whom we now direct the attention of our
readers have always depended upon the fur trade alone for their support,
and as the various fur companies of North America have flourished and
declined, so have the trappers multiplied or decreased in numbers. The
French, who were the founders of the fur trade on this continent,
established themselves here in 1606, and the trapping fraternity may
therefore claim the honor of having existed nearly two centuries and a
half. To estimate the precise number of individuals composing this class
at the present time would be an impossibility, occupying as they do a
section of country extending from the Pacific Ocean to Hudson’s Bay.
By the laws of our country they have ever been looked upon as aliens
from the commonwealth of civilization, and by the Indian tribes as
trespassers upon their natural and inherited privileges. The blood of
the white man, though frequently considerably adulterated, invariably
runs through their veins, and the great majority trace their origin to a
French, Scottish, or Irish ancestry, it being an established and
singular fact that trappers of pure American blood are exceedingly rare.
Those of the far north commonly have the dark eyes and hair of the
Canadian Frenchman, and those of the south-west the flaxen hair and
broad brogue of the Scotchman or Irishman. The motives generally found
to have influenced them in entering upon their peculiar life are of
course exceedingly various, but among the more common ones may be
mentioned a deeply-rooted love for the works of Nature in their primeval
luxuriance, want of sufficient intelligence to prosecute a more
respectable business, and a desire to keep out of the way of certain
laws which they may have transgressed in their earlier days. They are
usually men with families, their wives being pure Indian, and their
children, as a matter of course, half breeds. They have what may be
termed fixed habitations, but they are rude log cabins, located on the
extreme frontiers of the civilized world. In religion, as a class, they
are behind their red brethren of the wilderness, and their knowledge of
books is quite as limited. Generally speaking, they spend about nine
months roaming alone through the solitude of the forests and prairies,
and the remaining three months of the year with their families or at the
trading posts of the fur companies. As their harvest time is the winter,
they are necessarily men of iron constitutions, and frequently endure
the severest hardships and privations. Understanding as they do the
science of trapping and the use of the gun more thoroughly than the
Indian, they eclipse him in the business of acquiring furs, and from
their superior knowledge of the civilized world, limited though it be,
they realize much greater profits, and hence it is that they are not
only hated by the Indian but also by the traders. Their manner of
dressing is ordinarily about half civilized, their buckskin hunting
shirts and fur caps, of their own manufacture, appearing almost as
picturesque as the blankets and plumes of the Indian himself. Like the
Indians, too, they prefer richly-fringed leggins to pantaloons, and
embroidered moccasins to shoes. To be perfectly free from every
restraint both of body and mind, is their chief ambition, and to enjoy
the freedom of the wilderness is their utmost happiness. Those who
follow their trade among the mountains are commonly banded together in
parties of half a dozen. They perform their long journey altogether upon
horseback, and when among the mountains are as expert in scaling
precipices, surmounting waterfalls, and buffeting snow-storms as the
more hardy of the Indian tribes. They are expert horsemen, ride the best
of animals, and take great pleasure not only in decking themselves with
ornaments, but also in caparisoning their horses in the most grotesque
yet picturesque manner. As to the animals which all of them make it
their business to capture, it may be mentioned that chiefest among them
all is the beaver; but a goodly portion of their income is derived from
the furs and peltries of the martin, otter, muskrat, bear, fox, mink,
lynx, wolverine, raccoon, wolf, elk, and deer, and the robes of the huge
buffalo.
But let us describe the life of the trapping fraternity somewhat more
minutely, in doing which we shall give an illustrative sketch of the
career of a single individual, describing his departure from home, his
sojourn in the wilderness, his return home, and his manner of spending
his brief summer furlough.
It is a bright October morning, and about the threshold of the trapper’s
cabin there is an unusual stir. While the trapper himself is busily
engaged in examining and putting in order his traps, packing away his
powder and lead, with a number of good flints, giving the lock of his
old rifle a thorough oiling, and sharpening his knives, his wife is
stowing away in his knapsack a few simple cooking utensils, a small bag
of tea and a little sugar, several pairs of moccasins and coarse woolen
socks, and a goodly quantity of the sinewy material used in making
snow-shoes. The fact that our friend is about to separate from his
family for the most part of a year, makes him particularly kind to those
about him; and, by way of manifesting his feelings, he gives into his
wife’s possession what little spare money he may have left in his pocket
out of his earnings of the previous year, and allows his children to
make as much noise as they please, even refraining from scolding them
when they kick and abuse his favorite hunting dogs. All things being
ready, night comes, and the trapper permits himself to enjoy another
sleep in the midst of his household, but long before the break of day he
has whistled to his dogs, and, with his knapsack on his back, has taken
his departure for a stream that rises among the Rocky Mountains. If his
course lies through a forest land he continues to travel on foot, taking
his own leisure, killing a sufficient quantity of game to satisfy his
wants, and sleeping at night upon his skins, under a canopy of leaves.
If extensive water courses lie within his range, he purchases a canoe of
some wandering Indians and plays the part of a navigator; and if he
finds it necessary to cross extensive prairies, he obtains a pony, and,
packing himself and plunder upon the animal, plays the part of an
equestrian. When the first blast of December, accompanied by a shower of
snow, sweeps over the land, it finds our trapper friend snugly domiciled
in a log shanty at the mouth of the river where he purposes to spend the
winter trapping for beaver.
And now all things are ready, and the trapper has actually entered upon
his winter avocation. He has reconnoitered the valley in which he finds
himself, and, having ascertained the localities of the beaver, with
their houses and dams, he forthwith manages to shoot a single male
beaver, and having obtained from his glandulous pouch a substance called
_castoreum_, he mixes it with a number of aromatics, and in three or
four days he is supplied with a suitable bait and proceeds to set his
traps. As the senses of the beaver are exceedingly keen, the business of
the trapper requires experience and great caution, and he glides through
the forests almost with the silence of a ghost; but, when a master of
his calling, he seldom leaves a beaver village until, by his cunning
arts, it has become depopulated. The war of extermination, as already
intimated, begins at the mouth of the river, and with our friend will
only cease when he has reached the fountain-head, or the season for
trapping comes to an end. The coldest of winds may blow and the woods
may be completely blocked with snow, but the trapper has mounted his
snow-shoes, and day after day does he revisit and rearrange his traps.
If night overtake him when far removed from his shanty (which may be the
case more than half the time), he digs himself a hole in some sheltered
snow bank, and, wrapped up in his blanket by the side of his solitary
fire, spends a strangely comfortable night. When not engaged with his
traps, he employs his time in drying and dressing his furs; or, as fancy
may dictate, he shoulders his gun and starts out for the purpose of
capturing a deer, a bear, or some of the beasts which are wont to howl
him to sleep at the midnight hour. Venison and bear meat constitute his
principal food, but he is particularly partial to the tail of his
favorite beaver. The only human beings with which he has any social
intercourse during the long winter are the poor wandering Indians who
chance to visit him in his cabin; and at such times many are the wild
adventures and strange legends which they relate to each other around
the huge fire of the trapper. And he now enjoys to perfection the
companionship of his dogs. Companions, it is true, of another sort
sometimes gather around his lonely habitation to relieve his solitude,
for the snowy owl hoots and screams at night from the huge pine branch
that reaches over his cabin, or perhaps an unmolested deer manifests its
love of companionship by browsing the twigs in broad daylight almost at
his very threshold. But now fair weather cometh out of the north, and
the trapper begins to think that he has secured such a supply of furs as
will guarantee him a comfortable support during the coming summer, and
one by one he gathers in his traps. The crack of his rifle is now heard
more frequently echoing through the woods, for he cares not to obtain
more beaver skins even if he could, and he would obtain a sufficient
number of miscellaneous furs to render his assortment complete. Heavy
spring rains have set in, the water courses are nearly released from
their icy fetters, and on issuing from his cabin, after a night of
conflicting dreams, he finds that the neighboring stream has become
unusually full. A single glance at its turbid waters is enough. He cuts
down a suitable tree and builds him a canoe, and in this does he stow
away his furs and all his other plunder; and, seizing his paddle, he
jumps into his seat, and with a light heart starts for his distant home.
The rains are over and gone, and although our voyager has already been
ten days upon the waters, he has yet at least a thousand additional
miles to travel. Rapids without number are to be passed, many a
laborious portage must be made around huge waterfalls, and at least two
months must elapse before he can moor his little barge in the haven
where he would be. Day follows day, and his course is onward. All along
his route the forest trees are bursting their buds and decking
themselves with the livery of the vernal season, while the grasses and
flowers of the prairies are striving to overreach each other as they
loom into the pleasant sunshine. And then, too, the heart of our voyager
is cheered by the singing of birds. When night comes, and he has lain
himself down by his watchfire on the shore, in some little cove, he is
lulled to sleep by the murmuring music of the stream. If, on a pleasant
day when he is fatigued, he happen upon an Indian encampment and finds
that an extensive ball-play or an Indian horse-race, or any important
medicine ceremony is about to occur, he tarries there for a few hours,
and then, as his mind dwells upon the grotesque and laughable scenes he
has witnessed, resumes his voyage in a more cheerful mood. Day follows
day, and the stream upon which he is now floating is broad and deep, and
sweeps onward as if rejoicing with pride for having triumphed over the
obstacles of the wilderness, and is rapidly approaching the fields and
the abodes of civilization. It is now the close of a day in the leafy
month of June, and our voyager is gliding noiselessly into the quiet
cove beside his cabin, and, uttering a loud whistle or whoop and firing
his gun, his wife and children hasten to the shore, and—the trapper is
at home!
The summer time, in the opinion of our trapper friend, is the season of
unalloyed enjoyment, for it is then that he gives himself up to the
gratification of all his desires. Having disposed of his furs and
peltries at the nearest trading post for a few hundred dollars in cash,
or its equivalent in merchandise, he deems himself independently rich,
and conducts himself accordingly. In a fit of liberality, he orders his
wife and children into his canoe and takes them upon a visit to the
nearest frontier village or city, where he loads them with gewgaws, and
the family spend a few days. The novelty of this visit soon passes away,
and our trapper with his family are once more domiciled in their cabin.
A week of inactivity then follows, and the trapper becomes as restless
as a fish out of water. He is troubled with a kind of itching palm, and
away he goes upon a vagabondizing tour among the hangers-on about the
trading establishments, recounting to all who will listen to him his
adventures in the wilderness, and spending the remainder of the summer
after the manner of the idle and the dissipated. But the first frost
brings him to his senses, and the trapper is himself again—for he is
thinking of the wilderness.