THE LAND OF FURS
For four hundred years furs from Canada have been warming the flesh
and enhancing the charms of feminine beauty. It is to-day the chief
breeding place of animals valued for their skins, and it is likely to
remain so for centuries to come.
When the settlement of North America was at its beginning, the French
adventurers making fortunes in furs did their best to discourage the
incoming colonists, for they knew that this meant the death of the
wilderness. If they could have had their way, all that is now Canada
would have been left to the Indian trappers and the white traders who
relieved them of their annual catches. As it is, improved methods
of transportation, trapping, and hunting are reducing the available
supply, and the demand is such that the furriers have had to popularize
skins formerly despised as too common, and many Canadians have gone
into the business of breeding fur-bearing animals.
[Illustration: The fur business of Canada has its beginning when the
company trader strikes a bargain with the Eskimo for his season’s catch
of the white fox of the arctic and other skins.]
[Illustration: The Hudson’s Bay Company has more than two hundred
trading posts where Indians, Eskimos, and white trappers exchange furs
for goods. Eighteen of the stations lie near or north of the Arctic
Circle.]
[Illustration: Most of the fine fox skins now marketed in Canada come
from animals raised in captivity on fur farms. Occasionally a cat may
act as a substitute mother for a litter of fox kittens.]
Winnipeg has long been an important city in the Canadian fur trade,
and here the world’s greatest fur organization has its headquarters.
I refer, of course, to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which for more than
two hundred and fifty years has been bartering goods for the furs of
British North America. It was founded when the British had scarcely a
foothold in Canada, and its operations won for them their dominion
over the northwestern part of our continent. In the beginning it was
but one of many trading enterprises of the New World. To-day it has
adapted itself to the tremendous changes in our civilization and it is
bigger, stronger, and richer than ever.
Massachusetts Colony was not fifty years old when the _Nonsuch_, loaded
to the waterline with the first cargo of furs, sailed for England
from Hudson Bay. The success of the voyage led the dukes and lords
who backed the venture to ask King Charles II for a charter. This was
granted in 1670, and thus came into existence, so far as the word of
a king could make it so, “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of
England Trading into Hudson’s Bay,” exclusive lords and proprietors of
a vast and but vaguely known region extending from Hudson Bay westward,
with sole rights to fish, hunt, and trade therein.
It remained for the Company to make good the privileges conferred by
the charter and maintain the profits, which at that period sometimes
amounted to one hundred per cent. a year. For nearly a century the
company’s ships and forts did battle with the armed forces of the
French. For another long period its factors and traders had to meet the
attacks of rival companies. At times the company was nearly wiped out
by the heavy losses it sustained. For almost two centuries it furnished
the only government of the Canadian Northwest, and without the use of a
standing army it administered a vast region, out of which provinces and
territories have since been carved.
The “Company of Adventurers” has now become a fifteen million dollar
corporation, paying regularly five per cent. on ten million dollars’
worth of preferred stock. A fleet of river, lake, and ocean steamers
has succeeded the _Nonsuch_. The early trading posts, stocked with
crude tools, weapons, and ornaments for the Indians, have been
supplemented by a chain of eleven department stores, extending from
Winnipeg to Vancouver, and at the same time the number of trading posts
exchanging goods for furs is greater than ever. There are about two
hundred of these posts, eighteen of which are near or north of the
arctic circle. The Company no longer actually governs any territory,
and it is selling to settlers the remainder of the seven million
acres in the fertile belt it has received from the Dominion since the
surrender of its ancient rights in the Northwest.
The story of the Hudson’s Bay Company is a large part of the history of
Canada. Many books have been written about it, and countless romances
built upon the lives of its men stationed in the wilds. Here at
Winnipeg the company has an historical exhibit where one may visualize
the life of the trappers and the traders, and gain an idea of the
adventures that are still commonplaces in their day’s work. The company
museum contains specimen skins of every kind of Canadian fur-bearing
animal. The life of the Indians and the Eskimos is reproduced through
the exhibits of their tools, boats, weapons, and housekeeping equipment.
The success of the Hudson’s Bay Company has rested upon its relations
with the Indians. The organization is proud of the fact that it has
never engaged in wars with the tribes. The business has always been on
a voluntary basis, and the Indians have to come to the Company posts
of their own free will. At first the traders’ stocks were limited, but
through centuries of contact with civilization the wants of the red
man have increased and become more varied. They now include nearly
everything that a white man would wish if he were living in the woods.
The first skins brought in from Hudson Bay were practically all
beavers. This led to the exchange being based on the value of a single
beaver skin, or “made beaver.” Sticks, quills, or brass tokens were
used, each designating a “made beaver,” or a fraction thereof. The
prices of a pound of powder, a gun, or a quart of glass beads were
reckoned in “made beaver.”
Early in its history the Company decided that Scotchmen made the best
traders and were most successful in dealing with the Indians. Young
Scotchmen were usually apprenticed as clerks on five-year contracts,
and if successful they might hope to become traders, chief traders,
factors, and chief factors. Men in these grades were considered
officers of the company and received commissions. Mechanics and men
engaged in the transport service were known as “servants” of the
company, and the distinction between “servants,” clerks, and officers
was almost as marked as in the various military ranks of an army.
To-day, Canada is divided into eleven districts, each of which is in
charge of a manager, and the old titles are no longer used.
A trader had to be a diplomat to preserve friendly relations with the
Indians, an administrator to manage the Company’s valuable properties
in his charge, a shrewd bargainer to dispose of his stock on good
terms, and at times soldier and explorer besides. The Company’s
charter authorized it to apply the laws of England in the territories
under its jurisdiction, and its agents frequently had to administer
justice with a stern hand. It early became the inflexible policy to
seek out a horse thief, incendiary, or murderer among the Indians and
impose punishment, and it was the trader who had to catch his man and
sometimes to execute him.
It was the activities of its rivals, and especially of the Northwest
Company, that resulted in the establishment of the inland stations of
the Hudson’s Bay Company. As long as it had a monopoly, the Company
was content to set up posts at points convenient for itself, and let
the Indians do all the travelling, sometimes making them go as much as
one thousand miles to dispose of their furs. The opposition, however,
carried goods to the Indians, and thus penetrated to the far Northwest
and the Mackenzie River country. This competition compelled the older
organization to extend its posts all over Canada, and finally, in
1821, led to its absorption of the Northwest Company. To-day the chief
competitor of the Hudson’s Bay Company is the French firm of Revillon
Frères.
The merger with the Northwest Company was preceded by years of violent
struggle. The younger concern was the more aggressive. It tried to keep
the Indians from selling furs to the Hudson’s Bay traders. Its men
destroyed the traps and fish nets, and stole the weapons, ammunition,
and furs of their rivals. Neither was above almost any method of
tricking the other if thereby furs might be gained. Once some Hudson’s
Bay men discovered the tracks of Indians returning from a hunt. They
at once gave a great ball, inviting the men of the near by post of
the rival company. While they plied their guests with all forms of
entertainment, a small party packed four sledges with trade goods and
stole off to the Indian camp. The next day the Northwest men heard of
the arrival of the Indians and went to them to barter for furs, only
to find that all had been sold to the Hudson’s Bay traders. At another
time two rival groups of traders met en route to an Indian camp and
decided to make a night of it. But the Northwest men kept sober, and,
when the Hudson’s Bay men were full of liquor, tied them to their sleds
and started their dog teams back on the trail over which they had come.
The Northwest traders then went on to the Indians and secured all the
furs.
The Hudson’s Bay Company sends all of its raw skins to London, where
they are graded and prepared for the auction sales attended by fur
buyers from all over the world. It does not sell any in Canada.
Nevertheless, the Dominion is an important fur-making centre. During a
recent visit to Quebec, I spent a morning with the manager of a firm
which handles millions of dollars’ worth of furs every year. It has its
own workshops where the skins are cured and the furs dressed and made
into garments. The name of this firm is Holt, Renfrew and Company. Let
us go back to Quebec and pay it a visit.
Imagine a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of furs under one roof!
Picture to your minds raw skins in bales, just as they were unloaded
from an Indian canoe, and then look again and see wraps and coats
made from them that would each bring five thousand dollars when sold
on Fifth Avenue. If your imagination is vivid enough you may see the
American beauties who will wear them and know how the furs will add to
the sparkle of their eyes and at the same time lighten the purses of
their sweethearts and husbands.
We shall first go to the cold storage rooms. Here are piles of
sealskins from our Pribilof Islands. Put one of these furs against
your cheek. It feels like velvet. In these rooms are beavers from
Labrador, sables from Russia, and squirrels from Siberia. There are
scores of fox skins--blue, silver, black, and white. Some of them come
from the cold arctic regions and others from fox farms not twenty
minutes distant by motor. Take a look at this cloak of silvery gray
fur. A year ago the skins from which it was made were on the backs of
hair seals swimming in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
As we go through the factory, some of the secrets of fur making are
whispered to us. For example, this bale contains fifteen hundred skins
of the muskrat. The animals which produced them will change their names
after a trip to the dyers. They will go into the vats and when they
come out they will be Hudson Bay seals, and eventually will find their
way into a black coat with a wonderful sheen. Years ago the muskrat
skin was despised. Now it is made into coats that, under the trade name
of Hudson seal, bring nearly as much as those of real seal.
Here are two Russian sables, little fellows of beautiful fur, that
together will form a single neck piece. The undressed skins are worth
seven hundred dollars the pair. As we look, the manager shows us two
native sables that seem to be quite as fine. He tells us they can be
had for eighty-five dollars each, or less than a quarter of the price
of the Russian.
The most valuable fur in the world to-day is the sea otter, of which
this firm gets only three or four skins in a year. But, in contrast,
over there is a whole heap of Labrador otters, beautiful furs, which
will wear almost for ever and will look almost as well as the sea
otter itself. But you can have your choice of these at forty dollars
apiece. They are cheap chiefly because the Labrador skin is not in
fashion with women. Fashion in furs is constantly changing. Not many
years ago a black fox skin often brought as much as fifteen hundred
dollars. To-day, so many are coming from the fur farms that the price
has fallen to one hundred and fifty dollars. Scarcity is one of the
chief considerations in determining the value of furs, and fashion
always counts more than utility. The rich, like the kings of old,
demand something that the poor cannot have, and lose their interest in
the genuine furs when their imitations have become common and cheap.
The dyer and his art have greatly changed the fur trade. It is he
who enables the salesgirl to wear furs that look like those of her
customers. For example, here is a coat made of the best beaver. Its
price is four hundred dollars, and beside it is another made of dyed
rabbit fur, marked one hundred and fifty dollars. It is hard for
a novice to tell which is the better. All sorts of new names have
been devised by the furriers to popularize dyed skins of humble
animals, from house cats to skunks, in order to increase the supply
of good-looking and durable furs. Reliable dealers will tell you just
what their garments are made of, but the unscrupulous pass off the
imitations as the genuine article.
The business of dyeing furs was developed first in Germany, when that
country led the world in making dyes. Now that New York is competing
with London as a great fur market many of the best German dyers are at
work there. From the standpoint of the consumer, the chief objection to
dyed fur is that the natural never fades, while the dyed one is almost
certain to change its hue after a time.
Now let us go into the rooms where the furs are made up. It is like
a tailor shop. Here is a designer, evolving new patterns out of big
sheets of paper. There are the cutters, making trimmings, stoles, neck
pieces, and coats. Each must be a colour expert, for a large part of
the secret of fashioning a beautiful fur garment is in the skillful
matching of the varying shades to give pleasing effects. Were the skins
for a coat sewn together just as they come from the bale, the garment
resulting would be a weird-looking patchwork. Even before the skins are
selected, they must be graded for the colours and shadings which go far
to determine their value. There are no rules for this work; it takes a
natural aptitude and long experience. In the London warehouse of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, the men of a single family have superintended the
grading of all the millions of skins handled there for more than one
hundred years.
Turn over this unfinished beaver coat lying on the bench and look at
the wrong side. See how small are the pieces of which it is made and
how irregular are their shapes. It is a mass of little patches, yet
the outer, or right side, looks as though it were made of large skins,
all of about the same size and shape. A coat of muskrat, transformed
by dyeing into Hudson seal, may require seventy-five skins; a moleskin
coat may contain six hundred. But in making up either garment each
skin must be cut into a number of pieces and fitted to others in order
to get the blending of light and dark shades which means beauty and
quality.
[Illustration: The Eskimo woman and her children wear as every-day
necessities furs which if made into more fashionable garments would
bring large sums. Usually the whole family goes on the annual trip to
the trading post.]
[Illustration: As Saskatchewan was not made a province until 1904,
Regina is one of the youngest capital cities in Canada. It was for many
years the headquarters of the Mounted Police for all the Northwest.]